Short post on social media...

On Monday I sent a morning note out, observing that everyone will have had their fill of the observation 'we don't expect a US default' but that as the October 17th deadline to resolve the issue of the US debt ceiling draws closer we need to ponder  how hard that deadline is and meanwhile, asset prices may remain under pressure.

I was glad, therefore, that the following chart was posted on a market blog by well-known blogger/tweeter/commentator Joe Weisenthal.

The chart shows how the 'hard' line in the sand for the US running out of any wiggle room on its finances comes a bit later, either on October 31 or November 1 when big payments are due.

So I re-tweeted the picture from a restaurant as follows:

kit juckes ‏@kitjuckes7 Oct

Happy Halloween. Doomsday is Nov1 RT@TheStalwart: CHART OF THE DAY: This chart destroys the debt ceiling truthers. http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-this-chart-destroys-the-debt-ceiling-truthers-2013-10 …

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Today (Wednesday) I find the notion that the actual day the US runs out of money could be later than October 17th is being discussed around the financial markets. So

A nod of respect to Goldman Sachs, who did the work to produce the chart. And a note of thanks to Joe for answering my Monday query about how hard the line in the sand is.

Does any of this matter? Not necessarily for markets: Is it really important on which day the US political system finally hits its collective head against a brick wall? I tend to think there's a danger to a 'soft' line in the sand because there's a temptation to ignore it, but markets give us too much of a short-term focus. In the big scheme of things, this will play out this month one way or the other.

But the bigger theme is about how much faster this kind of information is now flowing at the edges of the markets, than in the middle of them. Aggregating, sorting and learning how to use this information really does give you an edge because a large number of the questions you might be asking yourself have already been answered by someone, somewhere in the ether.

Today, the nice people at Business Insider have posted a collection of charts from market participants. Some are by colleagues, some by friends, or clients, or competitors and many by people I have never met. But a bunch of them are incredibly insightful. All yours, for free. Rick Harrell and Harry Bassman on US potential growth, Matt King on the narrowing exit door for investors in corporate bonds, Emad Mostaque on how oil futures are reacting to Middle East crises differently, Millan Mulrane on US (non) inflation, George Magnus and Wang Tao on China,  are the ones which stood out for me, but you can choose your own.

This information is invaluable. Aggregating and filtering it is the new skillset. I know another group of people who do that well, too...