With less than a week until the U.S. runs out of cash, economists and policymakers are using words like “cataclysmic event” and “calamity” to describe what will happen if Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit. It seems bad. Economists are predicting that if the government is unable to pay its bills, it could bring much of the global financial system to a halt. But everyday people will be affected too. So who would a failure to raise the debt limit hurt first — and who would be hurt the most? You can think of the impact of the default as a sinkhole, pulling down the people closest to the epicenter first but spreading ... (full story)