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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Chances of a government shutdown rising



I was talking to Democratic strategist Bob Beckel at Fox yesterday on the subject of the president's budget and likelihood of a government shutdown. Until recently Beckel had been pretty sanguine about the latter, feeling that is was all bluster by the Republicans and nothing more. Yesterday, however, he indicated to me that it now looks pretty certain--CERTAIN--that the Republicans would force a shutdown.

I do not know what directional impact this will have on the markets, but I do know this: a shutdown and the discourse leading up to such an eventuality will create a lot of volatility.

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4 comments:

  1. googleheimFebruary 15, 2011 at 12:38 PM

    This is what threatened Barney the purple dinosaur in 1994 as well as the demise of the Super Conductor Super Collider which would have put the USA as the leader in fundemental and experimental scientific research for 50 years.

    Instead the Republicans shut down the government.

    The Republicans shut down the government in the mid 1990's to pay for the first Iraq war, and now they aim to shut down the government again to pay for the second Iraq war.

    Actually they are not "paying" for anything, it's just another smoke screen for their failure to use government spending for the people by the people.

    Open swap lines for the Europeans ?

    How is it that the dollar is weaker than the Euro ?

    So Europeans can buy the NYSE Euronext exchange ?

    So McDonald's can bring home dollars from Euros from Burger Royals ?

    So Coca Cola can keep up the foreign earnings which are tax free even if they repatriot them ?

    ....

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  2. Tom HickeyFebruary 15, 2011 at 1:29 PM

    All its going to take is a bit of shock to shake out this equity market. The only question is what it is going to be and when it will hit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. googleheimFebruary 15, 2011 at 11:02 PM

    I just learned that the NYSE Euronext Deutsch Borse is owned primarily by an American mutual fund, then Brussels, then Paris, then Frankfurt.

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  4. Matt FrankoFebruary 16, 2011 at 11:00 AM

    Mike,

    Beowulf has reported here that Cantor has (or at least had) a short position in Treasuries via the TBT ultra short ETF.

    I think this is at least borderline unethical if, as he is now 2nd in line in the US Congress, he is in a position to hold up this "debt ceiling" thing and perhaps cause a technical default in Treasuries. He might enrich himself if he still has the TBTs and Treasuries sell off due to no vote on raising the debt ceiling.

    This may be scandalous. Perhaps make sure Beckel knows that Cantor has been trading against the US govt "credit" as a US Congressman.

    Resp,

    ReplyDelete