Brett Arends’s ROI: How bad is the debt-ceiling standoff in Washington?

How bad is the debt-ceiling standoff in Washington, D.C.?

Try this: It now costs more on the international markets to insure U.S. Treasury bonds against default than it does the bonds of Portugal, Ireland, or the Czech Republic. Let alone the government bonds of big economies like Japan, Germany, Great Britain and France.

The perceived risk…