Post: #1

At about 2am Eastern time, the House of Representatives closed shop, and decided to do nothing further about their inability to pass a bill that will pass the senate and the president.

What do guys think about the Federal Government shut down?

Are you personally affected in any way?

How long do you think that this shut down will last?

Do you have any prediction concerning what the resolution will be?

Is the shut down good for the US or for other countries?

How will the shut down affect the US economy / the world economy and the view that other governments and financial institutions have about the United States, and our ability to keep the government open?

Doesn't it seem that the United States merely moves from one crisis to another? and in a couple of weeks, there is going to be another debt ceiling crisis, no?

Post: #2

I'm an essential employee, so I come to work with no idea when I'll get paid. I can't take leave as I'll be AWOL.

Morale is pretty low here today.

Post: #3

(10-01-2013 06:01 AM)Sumanguru Wrote:  I'm an essential employee, so I come to work with no idea when I'll get paid. I can't take leave as I'll be AWOL.

Morale is pretty low here today.

Yes, Saumanguru, it's a mess, and we should all strive to have enough savings for having our paychecks cut off... just in case...

Currently, I personally have a good year saved that I could live off of, but when I was earlier in my career, i had struggled to maintain 2-3 months of savings that i could live off of.. in a worse case emergency scenario. Family is sometimes a back up, but not everyone has that back up.

Ultimately, I am predicting that all federal government employees are gonna get paid for their time off (whether it is for a day or for two weeks of govt shut down), b/c there just does not seem to be enough broad support in the public or with politicians to sustain a meaningful and/or long term shut down. But really hoping other RVF members will chime in here, with their opinions.

I may be wrong in my prognosis of how long this will last, though b/c prior to the actual shutdown that began a few hours ago, I had believed that there was not enough support of either politicians or the public to even come to this point of an actual shut down.. I did not think the ones causing the shut down would be that dumb (anyway public sentiment is that a small group of tea party backers in the house of repps are causing the shut down though there may be a different reality and/or a different perception of reality by RVF members regarding who is causing this problem?). What do i know?

Also, this whole fiasco of shutting down the fed govt to undermine federal workers and maybe even to undermine aspects of American society seems potentially suicidal to the whole standing of the USA in the world - which is largely an artificial confidence structure that is being maintained by some thin threads, that I would think even wealthy people in the USA would not want to screw with this delicate balance that is working to the advantage of the USA.

I mean ultimately I think the goal of the very wealthy in the US is to rob a few more resources from the American people (such as robbing the big pot of social security money) before the place goes down in flames, but what do I know? - that is a form of speculation from me. And, maybe some other RVF members have some thoughts about these kinds of motives to explain why we are where we are at regarding these kinds of crises that seem self-inflicted?

Post: #4

Let's move the conversation here:

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