THE FAT CATS AREN'T SAVING US. IS THAT MORAL HAZARD RUN AMOK?

Tim F. at Balloon Juice:

The suicide primary runs the GOP now. Whatever candidate the GOP's establishment puts up, no matter how much cash the overlords throw at a primary, someone like Christine O'Donnell can show up out of nowhere, claim the right flank and win.

I think this is more or less true. However, I keep wondering how it's possible for the extremist cult to trump all that Establishment money and power in the case of the debt ceiling -- is it really possible that the Establishment guys don't have enough money to outspend, and thus scare the crap out of, default-craving extremist freshmen in the heartland?

The conclusion I keep coming to is that the overlords really don't mind what the crazies are doing right now.

I keep thinking of Stan Druckenmiller, the hedge-fund billionaire I mentioned last week, who likes Chris Christie and who doesn't really care if we go into a debt crisis because he'll just miss a T-note payment or two, but he'll get massive cuts in spending. I figure there are a lot of guys like that in the fat cat community who are thinking, "What's the worst that can happen to the likes of us?" It's exactly what they were thinking about liar loans and robo-signing and all the rest back in the '00s -- potential for a big payout, and if it all goes kerblooey, we'll be made whole. I just figure they no longer think anything can hurt them -- probably with good reason. Though I guess we'll see what the reaction of the hardcore 'baggers is to the next TARP. But in any case, the plutocrats just may not care anymore what goes wrong, because they figure they're bulletproof. Oh, and Eric Cantor and Erick Erickson don't call them "fat cats," so they're siding with that level of respect.