Government Shutdown on the clock thread

[StrangeSox]

What will happen is that they are going to vote themselves another raise for doing a bang up job!

 

Are any people who voted Republican okay with this? I mean, these are the guys they elected, so is this what they want?

 

Yes, a substantial number of Republicans, including some legislators, are ok with this. They don't think going through the debt ceiling will be a big deal, or they think it's somehow necessary because 'fiscal responsibility' or a combination of both. The information bubble for these people is incredibly strong.

[StrangeSox]

I don't get why the rest of the house repubs don't call these guys morons and distance themselves as far as possible. Instead, they're publicly supporting them.

 

They'll be primaried from the right by radical tea party conservatives if they don't. It's so ridiculous that even John Cornyn is called a RINO.

[StrangeSox]

Doubtful. Large donors are going to go berserk if this impacts stock prices on wall street. Ive been told 4 weeks of shutdown was what major institutions were willing to accept, before they start to sell.

 

Republicans and Democrats both answer to the same master. Multinational corporations arent going to forgive a Senator who cost them billions of dollars over political idealism.

 

I lol'd

 

 

Aaron Blake ✔ @AaronBlakeWP

Ted Cruz raised nearly $800,000 in third quarter http://wapo.st/H07HBr

Matt Stoller ✔ @matthewstoller

I hope he's not keeping it in a bank. RT @AaronBlakeWP @HotlineJosh Ted Cruz raised nearly $800,000 in third quarter http://wapo.st/H07HBr

3:13 PM - 15 Oct 2013

 

you're probably right though, his fake-filibuster was all about campaign donations, but this nonsense will (hopefully) irreversibly damage him.

[southsider2k5]

I have to laugh that about a year ago people were trying to paint John McCain as a radical.

[Balta1701]

I have to laugh that about a year ago people were trying to paint John McCain as a radical.

To be fair, we're not talking about bombing anyone today...

[NorthSideSox72]

I have to laugh that about a year ago people were trying to paint John McCain as a radical.

And he still is - by people to his right.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Best part is when any of these dopes start talking about Reagan. The one they've created that has no basis in reality. Real Reagan, policy-wise, would be laughed off the GOP stage as a liberal today.

 

[cabiness42]

Fitch has put the US on notice regarding its credit rating.

[NorthSideSox72]

Fitch has put the US on notice regarding its credit rating.

Headline: Congress Fitch-Slapped

 

[StrangeSox]

The really horrible thing is that the big "deal" that's being considered is just a few more weeks until we go through this same dumb nonsense again. Something is fundamentally broken right now.

[Balta1701]

So the House Republicans were planning a vote on their plan that the senate won't pass this noting and that was delayed. They were then planning another vote this evening on their bill that won't pass the Senate, and once again there has been no vote and I'm about to go to bed. As of now the House Republicans clearly do not have the votes to pass any package and are still unwilling to pass a bill mostly with Democrats.

[EvilMonkey]

So the House Republicans were planning a vote on their plan that the senate won't pass this noting and that was delayed. They were then planning another vote this evening on their bill that won't pass the Senate, and once again there has been no vote and I'm about to go to bed. As of now the House Republicans clearly do not have the votes to pass any package and are still unwilling to pass a bill mostly with Democrats.

Perhaps it is time that the Senate go on record as not passing these bills that the House sends them, instead of Harry sitting on them. Why is it that the House has to bend to the Senate's wishes? It is time for the Senate to get in line with the house. At least vote on something. Let's see the Senate say no, they won't vote to keep parts of the government open.

[StrangeSox]

Perhaps it is time that the Senate go on record as not passing these bills that the House sends them, instead of Harry sitting on them. Why is it that the House has to bend to the Senate's wishes? It is time for the Senate to get in line with the house. At least vote on something. Let's see the Senate say no, they won't vote to keep parts of the government open.

 

 

The concern at this point isn't the shutdown our the house's dumb attempt to open a handful of government agencies.

 

Perhaps it's time for the lunatics in the house gop to let the hostages go.

 

Edit: house republicans couldn't even get together enough votes for whatever their latest "guaranteed to fail in the Senate and be vetoed" plan yesterday. They are in complete disarray.

Edited October 16, 2013 by StrangeSox

[NorthSideSox72]

Perhaps it is time that the Senate go on record as not passing these bills that the House sends them, instead of Harry sitting on them. Why is it that the House has to bend to the Senate's wishes? It is time for the Senate to get in line with the house. At least vote on something. Let's see the Senate say no, they won't vote to keep parts of the government open.

First of all, the Senate HAS voted down many House efforts, early on in this process. Then the House kept sending the same thing over and over again. I despise Reid, but this is not his fault.

 

Second, previously when the Senate stripped out the amendments and sent it back to the House, the House sat on it.

 

Third, the Senate is actually working a two-party discussion. The House meanwhile is just the GOP arguing with itself.

 

Fourth, if the House is churning out bills that won't pass the Senate and the President won't pass, they are simply wasting time and you know it.

 

This crisis boils down to what I said earlier. The GOP has allowed itself to be scared by a collection of extremists, and now they have lost all control of the beast. Long term, fortunately, this will correct itself politically. Meanwhile, the entire country is being held hostage by these extremists.

 

[Balta1701]

Long term, fortunately, this will correct itself politically.

I'm just going to hope you're right about this...but I think there's good reason to believe you're wrong.

 

We have a system with way too many points that allow a determined minority to prevent anything from happening. Historically our system has worked because no minority has ever been willing to use them all and the kitchen sink simultaneously. Those historical norms have now been thrown out the window.

 

IMO, we saw something like this in California after 1978, when an initiative was passed requiring a supermajority to pass a budget. It caused years to decades of financial crises, budgetary panics, missed deadlines, and so forth, that were small enough they didn't hurt the country but by everyone's account they were terrible for the state. A determined minority could prevent a budget from passing and they did so almost every year until the majority was forced to give in to large numbers of demands to get single votes from the one or two persuadable votes. Those holdouts would then either face primary challengers or they'd be replaced when they hit their term limits.

 

The only way the state got out of that was when one party got enough votes to actually run the state on its own. It took decades and the failed governorship of an Actor before it happened. And since they haven't tried to fix the rules, who knows if the budget will be stable long-term.

[StrangeSox]

There's a reason that the US is the notably rare exception to the typical outcome of presidential democracies. Majorities can't govern, accountability is lowered, and with our particular setup, there are a ton of veto points.

[StrangeSox]

Felix Salmon on why we're already feeling the affects of the debt ceiling limit (on top of the sequester and the shutdown):

 

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013...-already-begun/

 

And here’s the problem: we’re already well past the point at which that certainty has been called into question. Fidelity, for instance, has no US debt coming due in October or early November, and neither does Reich & Tang:

 

While he doesn’t believe the U.S. will default, Tom Nelson, chief investment officer at Reich & Tang, which oversees $35 billion including $17 billion in money-market funds, said that the firm isn’t holding any U.S. securities that pay interest at the end of October through mid-November because if a default does take place, “we’d be criticized for stepping in front of that train.”

 

The vaseline, in other words, already has sand in it. The global faith in US institutions has already been undermined. The mechanism by which catastrophe would arise has already been set into motion. And as a result, economic growth in both the US and the rest of the world will be lower than it should be. Unemployment will be higher. Social unrest will be more destructive. These things aren’t as bad now as they would be if we actually got to a point of payment default. But even a payment default wouldn’t cause mass overnight failures: the catastrophe would be slower and nastier than that, less visible, less spectacular. We’re not talking the final scene of Fight Club, we’re talking more about another global credit crisis — where “credit” means “trust”, and “trust” means “trust in the US government as the one institution which cannot fail”.

 

[cabiness42]

Unemployment will be higher.

 

No it won't. Unemployment will remain exactly the same as long as the government is shut down.

[StrangeSox]

It will actually decrease because government destroys jobs!

[cabiness42]

It will actually decrease because government destroys jobs!

 

No, I meant that it will remain the same because the people measuring the change in the unemployment rate aren't working!

 

[Jenksismyhero]

I read somewhere this morning that the US has defaulted twice, and in both situations nothing dramatic happened. The first was with Madison in 1813 or 1814, the second was under Carter.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...he-printer.html

 

Also, in terms of the doomsday scenario, haven't various states (like Illinois) been defaulting on its debts for years? And we're still around, right? Obviously scales are different and Illinois is the furthest thing from a model government/economy, but still.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[NorthSideSox72]

I read somewhere this morning that the US has defaulted twice, and in both situations nothing dramatic happened. The first was with Madison in 1813 or 1814, the second was under Carter.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...he-printer.html

 

Also, in terms of the doomsday scenario, haven't various states (like Illinois) been defaulting on its debts for years? And we're still around, right? Obviously scales are different and Illinois is the furthest thing from a model government/economy, but still.

Well, for one thing, you just cannot compare a state to the feds in this case. Entirely different sets of consequences.

 

As for the default in '79, there was that relatively minimal effect, and that could be what we see here. But the article also states that had a permanent negative effect. And that was just one technical blip that was corrected with interest. I think it is right to say that at 12:01am the world does not end... but things do get very ugly, very quickly.

 

[illinilaw08]

I read somewhere this morning that the US has defaulted twice, and in both situations nothing dramatic happened. The first was with Madison in 1813 or 1814, the second was under Carter.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...he-printer.html

 

Also, in terms of the doomsday scenario, haven't various states (like Illinois) been defaulting on its debts for years? And we're still around, right? Obviously scales are different and Illinois is the furthest thing from a model government/economy, but still.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-07/a...man-s-fall.html

 

About halfway down this article, they describe the differences between 1979 and a default today. Basically, in 1979, the debt deal was done before the deadline, but "severe technical difficulties" at the Treasury caused payments to go out late. And even that caused yield rates to jump by half a percent. Obviously the US in 1814 was not the basis of the global economy.

 

In an actual default, money-market funds will be required to sell off their US Treasuries. Additionally, given the impact of Lehman's default on $500+ billion, it's reasonable to believe that the world stock markets will go into free fall, and the cost of borrowing will go through the roof. So who will a default hurt most? Hey! The middle class! You know, those of us with our retirement in 401ks and the equity in homes as our other major asset.

 

And Jenks, you are smart enough to recognize that the bond market in Illinois is very, very different than a default by the nation upon whose currency the rest of the global economy is based upon.

 

Even for people who are not completely convinced a default would be catastrophic, why tempt fate?

 

Edit: I'm especially on edge about this right because the wife just took a job in Denver. Our house is on the market and, if things stay as is, we have a reasonable amount of equity and a good chance that the house sells on the timeframe we need it to sell on. If interest rates go through the roof, this could get really bad for people like us (who need to sell) in a hurry. That this is a completely manufactured crisis makes the whole thing significantly worse.

Edited October 16, 2013 by illinilaw08

[Jenksismyhero]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-07/a...man-s-fall.html

 

About halfway down this article, they describe the differences between 1979 and a default today. Basically, in 1979, the debt deal was done before the deadline, but "severe technical difficulties" at the Treasury caused payments to go out late. And even that caused yield rates to jump by half a percent. Obviously the US in 1814 was not the basis of the global economy.

 

In an actual default, money-market funds will be required to sell off their US Treasuries. Additionally, given the impact of Lehman's default on $500+ billion, it's reasonable to believe that the world stock markets will go into free fall, and the cost of borrowing will go through the roof. So who will a default hurt most? Hey! The middle class! You know, those of us with our retirement in 401ks and the equity in homes as our other major asset.

 

And Jenks, you are smart enough to recognize that the bond market in Illinois is very, very different than a default by the nation upon whose currency the rest of the global economy is based upon.

 

Even for people who are not completely convinced a default would be catastrophic, why tempt fate?

 

Well sure, this whole thing is dumb.

[Texsox]

I am developing a lot of empathy for Boehler. He is in about the worst situation that any speaker has had to deal with, and I honestly do not believe it is even 10% his fault. I don't think anyone could have provided a solution that would work in this situation.

 

Basically as I am now seeing this it's like a poker player getting a crappy hand, no matter how you played it you were going to have to fold.