Government Default Investment Advice

I have no @#$%^&* idea what the House GOP will do and I do expect, once the markets react, they will pass the laws necessary to restart the government and debt issuance/roll over.

At work (at my little Emerging Market Hedge Fund) instead of discussing whether the Ukraine will soon be in a currency crisis or knuckling under to Putin in return for a financial lifeline, we are discussing how the US government will actually roll its existing debt if there is no increase in the debt limit.  Treasuries, like all bonds, settle 3 days after issuance.  The issue is, if you are at the debt limit and need to pay off some Treasury Bills in 3 days, the issuance of Treasury Bills today to have the cash in 3 days will push you over the debt limit for the 3 days until you pay down the maturing debt.

So you cannot have the cash to pay the maturing Treasury Bills unless you don't pay other invoices and raise the cash to pay the maturing debt that way.  But not paying those invoices will be a default on timely payment of those Congressionally authorized payments.  And it will include payments to Veterans and Dr's and Social Security and Defense Contractors and .... and .... and...   you get the picture.  Also, the Government's computers are not set up to pay things that way.

Now I cannot for certain tell you to sell your US assets because they may not plummet in price expecting the Congress to do the right thing.  And Congress can do the right thing in about 48 hours.  But if Congress does not do the right thing, selling those assets will have created a fantastic opportunity to maintain and improve your wealth.

Being a person with little current income at this time (startup hedge funds don't pay all that well), I need to know I have access to my cash savings.  So I moved 6 months of cash from my money market fund to my insured bank just in case there is some hiccup in the payments system.  I don't expect that and I cannot think of a reason the payments system will shut down, but the US government is a lot bigger than Lehman Brothers and a failure to pay has the potential to disrupt the payments system.  Maybe I should stash many thousands of dollars in cash into my mattress, but then my bank would (a) not have the cash and (b) would report me to the DEA.

Perhaps any readers in Argentina could give all of us some advice by posting comments.  I would appreciate any advice before Thursday.