The most annoying thing is that one countries SNAFU is going to screw with half the planets economy.
Eh, well, that's how it goes.
The actual default will fall between Thursday and the 1st November, so it wouldn't be immediately on Thursday, but the dominos would begin to fall.
However, from what rumours I'm hearing coming out of Washington, the Republicans are close to collapse, and when that happens, boy is the mud going to be slung between the Tea Party types and the rest of the GOP.