Ripples in the pond.
I wonder if those people who represent The People in both Congress and the Senate are even aware of the ripples that the partial government shutdown and (political posturing?) lack of advanced progress around the debt ceiling issue are having on the rest of the country.
Where I work for example I've been talking to more people who...simply put, don't have much faith in the government and are doing things like changing what they are invested in. The closer to the deadline for the debt ceiling (tomorrow) we got the more concerned they became. The more likely they were to move out of certain investments.
All anybody remembers of what happened to the market and things like retirement accounts is there being a big loss. Nobody remembers if they realized a loss because they moved out of the investments they had been in. Or if they remember the loss but forget how much it recovered afterwards. No. Only the loss.
Loss is painful, it stays with you. Happy moments like recoveries are lost to time.
Those who represent us in government are partially responsible for driving market activity.
Do they realize this? Do they think about this? Does this even come to mind when they are debating? When they are refusing to come to an agreement to re-open the government, or when they are refusing to come to an agreement about the debt ceiling?
If your citizens are losing faith do they think the rest of the world won't lost faith too?
Do they want the dollar to continue to be a currency benchmark? They need to think long-term.
If our leaders (Are they leading? Is that why progress is slow?) always wait until the last minute to get things done how will other people or countries see us? Will they still see us as a strong country? Will they see us as weak? Like a company that's not running efficiently that will, given enough time, be run into the ground if its course isn't corrected?
I feel like, for the most part, our politicians are so focused on the short-term that the long-term is almost completely foreign to them.
Or maybe it's just that the future is like a foreign country to them. (Where is that link? There was an article about that. Nevermind, found it.)
Where I work for example I've been talking to more people who...simply put, don't have much faith in the government and are doing things like changing what they are invested in. The closer to the deadline for the debt ceiling (tomorrow) we got the more concerned they became. The more likely they were to move out of certain investments.
All anybody remembers of what happened to the market and things like retirement accounts is there being a big loss. Nobody remembers if they realized a loss because they moved out of the investments they had been in. Or if they remember the loss but forget how much it recovered afterwards. No. Only the loss.
Loss is painful, it stays with you. Happy moments like recoveries are lost to time.
Those who represent us in government are partially responsible for driving market activity.
Do they realize this? Do they think about this? Does this even come to mind when they are debating? When they are refusing to come to an agreement to re-open the government, or when they are refusing to come to an agreement about the debt ceiling?
If your citizens are losing faith do they think the rest of the world won't lost faith too?
Do they want the dollar to continue to be a currency benchmark? They need to think long-term.
If our leaders (Are they leading? Is that why progress is slow?) always wait until the last minute to get things done how will other people or countries see us? Will they still see us as a strong country? Will they see us as weak? Like a company that's not running efficiently that will, given enough time, be run into the ground if its course isn't corrected?
I feel like, for the most part, our politicians are so focused on the short-term that the long-term is almost completely foreign to them.
Or maybe it's just that the future is like a foreign country to them. (Where is that link? There was an article about that. Nevermind, found it.)