1) Budgets have to be reapproved regularly by Congress and if they fail to vote to approve it, most spending ceases until they do so. The House of Representatives has a very small Republican majority and a small number of them want to reduce spending in general, as well as stop funding the Ukraine war. If the majority of Republicans pass a spending bill with some Democrats, these Republicans will force a vote for Speaker of the House. The Speaker runs procedures in the House because he presumably has a majority backing him. Last time there was a vote it locked up the House for a while. 2) A minority of Americans who oppose the amount of spending and borrowing the government does. Most people want to keep doing it and raise taxes until the national credit card gets declined. No one really benefits because it's temporary. 3) Typically minor and transient, some edge cases. Contributes to uncertainty, the day a deal is reached will likely be slightly green. 4) Hopefully forever, but usually no more than days, sometimes weeks. Everyone gets backpay in their next paycheck anyway. 5) Markets went down last week because the Fed is projecting they keep rates 0.5% higher in 2024 than they had previously projected. Why is the news blocked in Canada?

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1. A group of republicans are refusing to pass the yearly spending bills in the House of Representatives. The senate is Dem controlled, but they have nothing to vote on until house passes a bill. If the gov't doesn't authorize spending, and the existing authorizations aren't extended then gov't employees stop getting paid and things shutdown (often they get down to the wire of shutdown, and then authorize two more weeks of last years spending to extend negotiating time) 2. No one benefits directly from the gov't shutting down. Republicans have the majority in the house, however a group of 10-20 republican members that basically represent the margin of their majority are refusing to vote in favor without their demands being met. Mostly a mix of reducing spending demands, but some unknown but anyone but the speaker of the house, and others demands are geared towards trying to break up big bills into smaller ones. 3. It's not a good look for the US economy or faith in USA internationally... but mostly 'nothing burger' if they pass bill before too much time passes. Usually minimal effect on stocks short term, but hard to measure reputational damage of doing this over and over. 4. Really hard to say... if speaker caves and gives in to very right wing demands, that same bill might not pass the senate which is dem controlled or could be veto'd by Biden. That said, all politicians look weak and ineffective during a shutdown and in theory they shouldn't want their country to fail so there is always some optimism a deal gets done. All of it really boils down to negotiating tactics, even if they are playing Russian roulette with the country's reputation.

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Bingo. With rates this high and the current trend, let’s see how deep we cut. The republicans will try to punish Biden by burying the market before the election simply so they can point fingers.

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Government shutdowns almost happening are an annual tradition at this point. It might be a big deal after it is shutdown for a decent period of time. Until then dont sweat it. The only people who think they benefit from the shutdown are morons. Shutdown could not happen, could happen and last a few weeks, or end rapidly after the Democrats in general plus the Senate GOP basically ram something through over the objections of the nutjobs who are holding this hostage. ​ Markets are moving down because the Fed rate decision puts us squarely on the path for a recession if this plays out like past lengthy rate pauses at elevated levels. Do I think its going to be a mild or major recession? Who knows. The myriad factors that determine that kind of thing are essentially impossible to predict with certainty. What I am certain of is that the Fed is driving us into a recession and the bond market inversion has been telling them that for some time. When the Fed finally realizes they screwed up they can either drop rates much sooner than they are suggesting now which will stop the recession from getting bad or they can stay the course and we will get another major recession of the GFC level. The best way I can explain this is the Fed is driving a car to a family holiday meal at grandmas by solely looking back behind them arguing with the teenager in the back while driving forward on a foggy day. They know the landmarks on this stretch of road but they have bad eyesight and crappy glasses. The bond market in the front passenger seat knows the landmarks as well, is lookin ahead and is screaming at the fed that they are about to run into the ditch. The stock market is the annoying kid in the backseat who is looking forward to the dessert after the family meal and is ignoring the impending disaster. That kid is arguing with the driver which isnt helping matters. The annoying kid just looked up and said something about we're going to be late for dinner. Any moment now the driver will either face forward and correct or we will be in the ditch (the bad recession). If they violently overcorrect we will rapidly go into the other ditch (massive inflation).

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America is fat because of fast food, cheap processed food, and non-exercise. Driving by a McDonalds and seeing an empty parking lot and a line of cars circled around the drive through is a site to see.

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(1) See bot answer because it is mostly correct. The government shuts down when the government is unable to pass the budget that says that it can continue to pay the employees to continue to work. This is by design. Everyone has to legally stop when they are not legally paid. It is part of the negotiation process to cause this pain. (2) Technically it always takes both sides to cause a shut down. When they cannot come to an agreement on the budget, that’s a negotiation failure and it takes all the participants to cause that failure, but they will try to blame the other side. Politicians think that they benefit from it. Maybe those that control the politicians may benefit from it. If inspectors stop showing up for government inspections, I guess some businesses “benefit” from it. (3) the stock market is a reflection to some degree of the businesses that inhabit the market. Imagine all those businesses waiting on government action like approval, paperwork, contracts, etc. and they all suddenly stop. How can the business continue? The impact depends. If short, no impact. If long, more and more impact. (4) 0 days unless it actually starts. If it starts it will go long, because don’t start unless the intention IS to cause damage.

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No, pay cannot be distributed AT ALL until authorized by congress. The money is there, but the the authority to release it is what the authorization bill does. It sets the amount to be released to the DOD, creating their budget. Once authorized, DOD can then release it to it's different programs, one of which is the DOD personnel account. Until the authorization passes, NO pay.

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>or a currency you can't spend? Thats coming soon. Canada's banks are making moves to secure and preparing to purchase all existing Canadian crypto exchanges (rumors are they will incorporate them into their main banking services by 2025). They've already begun kicking out all major exchanges that arent based 100% in Canada. Apparently they want to do test runs of crypto use in daily spending by adding it on the Interac system. Also, various Canadian exchanges (like Newton, Netcoin, Wealthsimple, etc) have begun providing VISA/Mastercard debit cards linked to crypto accounts so you can spend it at stores (through an automatic at purchase conversion from crypto --> CAD)

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We were downgraded by one of the three major ratings agencies and (theoretically, at least) these agencies are supposed to operate independently of wall st banks and hedge funds and the like.

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Also conservatives can't do basic budgeting, that's why 100% of shutdowns have happened when conservatives controlled the house, and the house hadn't passed a budget as required by the constitution. This is of course despite the spending limit being unconstitutional. The debts of the United States shall not be questioned

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