We’re beginning month 2 of the government shut down. And to remind all of us how we got here, the US congress – our representatives in the house and the senate, have failed to come up with a budget in order to run the government. So the US can’t pay some of its bills or its workers.
Coming up with a budget is one of the key jobs of our elected officials. I wrote about it way back on day 6 here and later here.
Here’s a neat quote from govfacts.org that I included in my first post on the shut down.
And Then…
So you would think that our President and congress would be working round the clock to solve this. They should be working on compromises and deals to come to a resolution to fund the US government so we could put people back to work and pay our bills. Right?
But what are we reading in the news?
Not much.
I checked a few sites today and I do see a warning about holiday travel due to air traffic control personnel – still working but missing paychecks. A few more about SNAP benefits maybe ending, but a ruling that should restart them.
Ho Hum.
But that’s about it.
No calls to resolve this, no anger from the American people. In one of my posts, I included a quote from a boston.com reader.
Maybe we’ve all had enough.
Investing Angle
As an investor, I’m concerned.
We’re not getting figures from the government on the jobs and the economy. These are critical data points that we depend on.
But then again, the President fired the head of the bureau of labor statistics because he didn’t like the numbers. Seriously. Read it here.
So should we really rely on this info for investing decisions?
Now that was an overt move that may or may not have been justified (what do we know?) but it makes me question what kind of influence goes on behind the scenes?
It’s much more obvious in this administration, but it’s certainly not new in politics.
I think this is especially interesting and I’m guessing we’ll start to see private institutions replacing the government data. We already see this. We rely on ADP (a payroll company) for jobs data.
Wrap Up
My initial reaction is that it seems strange that we’re not up in arms about the shut down entering month 2.
But then again, as I think through this, our government has clearly gone off the rails. I’ve written extensively about the US debt, which recently crossed the $38 trillion mark and is growing at an accelerated pace.
Read more here.
We’re spending like drunken sailors yet the quality of life for many seems to be worse. Try buying a first home, or paying $100,000 per year for college. Or even managing a family budget while trying to save for retirement.
As tough as this is, it’s a million times harder when we tune in to see Taylor Swift partying at her mansion in RI or Jeff Bezos tooling around in his $600 million yacht, or pics of his lavish wedding in Italy.
Maybe the American people are fed up. We’re paying lots of money in taxes, the debt is rising, and my life is getting harder. Why should I worry about a government shut down?
I don’t know that this is the case, but it’s interesting to watch this play out and speculate about what it all means.
Let us know what you think!