(The Verge) – October 1 marked the 43rd partial shutdown of the US government, due to Congress’s inability to reach an agreement regarding a spending bill. A week and a half later, on Oct. 11, 2013, it appeared that the government shutdown was finally coming to an end as the President and Congress seemed to be initiating some kind of an agreement. The weekend, however, brought dismal news.
The Senate was supposed to resume work on Sunday in order to find a solution to end the chaos in Washington D.C. Such a step was especially necessary because if Congress fails to raise the “debt ceiling”, the federal government will miss the crucial deadline on October 17. Needless to say, this will have catastrophic results on the American economy. Contrary to common thought, the stock market so far (13 days into the government shutdown) has not suffered a major blow.
Economist Steve Moore reported that Friday was an especially beneficial day for Wall Street as the government shutdown seemed to be culminating. But, the fact that the weekend brought about no legitimate resolution has caused major concern regarding the immediate future of the American economy.
According to Moore, if the “debt ceiling” is not raised by October 17, then there will be severe problems within the stock market.
On the contrary, if the “debt ceiling” is raised by that date, then economic conditions will be favorable (and may even turn out to be better than expected)!
Moore further suggested that so far, American companies have handled the government shutdown in an appropriate fashion…luckily there has been no severe crisis.
The bigger concern, however, is how the smaller American businesses will be negatively affected by the new healthcare law, given the meticulous wording of some of the law’s mandates.
Until then, at least we can feel reassured that Congressional foolishness has not yet caused any major hindrances to the American economy. Impatiently, however, we wait.
