financially and a very negative reaction politically. >> shannon: and speaking of the financial reaction, you had mark zandi on today, a respected economist and he's worked for republicans and democrats in providing them relevant information. you asked him today about what can happen with the markets and with a possible credit downgrade. >> interesting because he said the markets have kind of factored in failure on the part of the super committee and he doesn't think if they announce tomorrow or wednesday we failed, particularly given the fact there's still the trillion dollars in automatic cuts, he doesn't think there's going to be a big negative. where he does think there will be is because there have been some thought that the super committee would deal with are we going to extend unemployment benefits? are we going to extend the payroll tax cut? and if you don't do that, then the economy loses a lot of stimulus at the end of the year when both of those expire and he thinks that could have a very negative impact in terms of a downgrading of the credit rating, he doesn't think that's going to happen. we'll see.