Slashdot Mirror
Shutdown Cost the US Economy $24 Billion
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Time Magazine reports that according to an estimate from Standard & Poor's, the government shutdown, which ended with a deal late Wednesday night after 16 days, took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services, $152 million per day in lost travel spending, $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down, and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. With the deal only guaranteeing government funding through January 15, the situation could grow worse. 'This is a real corrosion on the economy,' says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. 'If we have to go down a similar road in the near future, the costs are going to continue to add up.'"
How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?
Because doubling spending will fix the ecomony.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Let me guess, all politicians all blame the "other side" and will let us know how much the "other side" cost us within the week.
How did all that money just leave the economy? Did someone give it away to another country?
How much will the Slashdot outage cost the economy?
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown
This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.
Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.
It cost 24 billion dollars? Based on.. any number of imaginary things they want to show it cost them right? We must keep spending money we don't have, and we must keep increasing the amount of debt we have or we are all going to die right?
I mean to say, we have to spend this for the Children, and the children just lost 24Billion dollars! If you deny their right to spend, you are a "conspiracy theorist" to boot, so shaddup!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Wow. Just wow.
It's not a vacation when you don't plan for it, dont know when you're going to get paid and still have to meet all your financial responsibilities in the mean time. Sign me up... :/
The government doesn't produce anything and some portion is an artificial market created by government activities. Real wealth comes from serving real markets and people's needs. The other huge problem is the amount of debt accumulation is way faster than at any time in history. If this isn't slowed the economy will come to a crashing halt.
...that it cost 24 billion to put up a bunch of paper signs, orange cones, and flimsy barricades.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown
This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.
Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.
Or, ya know, "hundreds of thousands of federal workers had to choose between predatory payday loans or defaulting on their mortgages while waiting to get paid and sitting at home every day waiting to find out if they can go back to work". Not quite the same thing as a vacation when you a.) didn't get your last paycheck, and b.) don't know when you have to go back to work.
How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?
Let's also include all the folks who go to the ER for "free" health care; which is ultimately passed on to insured patients.
Let's also consider the folks who have "pre-existing" conditions who can't get health care. They don't go off and just die. They get medical care - for free (there are quite a few docs who have a very BIG hearts and help folks who are TRULY in need as well as non-profit hospitals who must give SOME free care) .
Al those costs must be made up. So what do they do? Hire creative cost accountants who will bury it in other costs and bills. Perfectly compliant with FASB and IRS rules concerning non-profits and charities.
tl:dr: regardless of what you think or hear, we all pay one way or another for sick people - lost productivity, higher fees at the doc's office or hospital's, higher insurance fees, etc....
All "Obama Care" does is put more of it in our faces - and yes, hides some by taxing employers.
Whatever. I'm not going to argue this - and if you ask a 100 doctors, you'll get 60% of the opinions on either side (it's the joke).
We have to ask ourselves, do we want to be a culture of "Alpha Humans" and be stressed out about life's necessities or do we want to be "Beta Humans" and work together so that all of us have a decent life.
I'm all for letting the folks who nothing better to live for than striving to accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating money, but let's not let their personality disorder affect us all.
The shutdown was for nothing more than 'branding' of their party.
That's not governance in any way shape or form...
Any GOP congressman who voted for the shutdown should be arrested.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Actually you can blame Joe Boehner for following the "Hastert Rule" and not allowing the budget bill to come up for a vote even though there was enough support for it to pass in the first place.
Partisan politics aside, you can't rule your house in an undemocratic manner and expect people to take you seriously when you blame the other party for all the trouble.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
When you see how these dollars were lost it just proves more and more how much waste and unnecessary costs are involved with this federal govt. I commented on the breakdown portion of the main article statement above. I still think we should run the govt using the 80/20 assumption--20% of the people do 80% of the work just as in the private sector quite often. We could probably shrink this govt down 80% or more and still everything would run, the country would prosper without govt intrusions into everything, and the economy would grow again AND basic services would continue to run in the govt. Sure, maybe some workers might have to put on multiple hats but SO WHAT! We have to do that all the time in the private sector AND we aren't guaranteed job security as these feds seem to be. Not sure what it takes to fire anyone in this govt but you can do just about anything short of murder and get away with it...it's a travesty!! [COMMENTS TO ABOVE ARTICLE STATEMENT] The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services [QUESTIONABLE VALUE HERE], $152 million per day in lost travel spending [TRAVEL FOR WHOM? GOVT PERSONNEL--SOUNDS LIKE WE SAVED MONEY], $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down [WOULDN'T HAVE COST ANYTHING IF OBAMA HADN'T FORCED CLOSURES OF STRUCTURES AND LAND THAT HAD NO REASON BEING CLOSED], and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown [NO THEY DIDN'T SINCE THEY WILL BE PAID BACK-PAY--AT MOST IT WAS AN INCONVENIENCE]but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. [THIS I AGREE WITH IN THAT CONTRACTORS AND OTHERS WON'T GET BACK PAY AND WORKERS HAD TO USE LEAVE OR GET NO PAYCHECKS BUT THEN IT GOES BACK TO WHETHER THE AGENCIES AND SERVICES WHERE THEY WORK ARE TRULY NECESSARY]
I've got some friends who work for the Fed and they loved the shutdown because they a) didn't have to go to work, b) weren't using up vacation days and c) were guaranteed backpay for the days the gov't was shutdown.
Nothing like a paid vacation.
Or perhaps had they been smart enough to not spend their hard earned(I use that term loosely with the feds) money on iduds and new cars every few years they would have had enough cash on hand to pay ALL of their bills for at least 3 months rather than go belly up from not working for only 2 weeks.
We ALL always have a choice. The idea that someone only has the choice between getting a paycheck from the federal government and going and getting another loan to pay for the first loan that they can't pay because they were piss poor planners is not only disingenuous, but morally bankrupt. In this country we all have not only the choice, but the opportunity to better ourselves and then some.
Another good question is WHY IN THE FLYING MONKEY POO do we need 800,000 Federal workers? And before anyone goes there, yes, I've lost my job before and was at one time out of work for more than 3 months. In the end, it all comes down to responsibility. Responsibility of both idiot political stooge parties for creating this mess and responsibility of the individual collecting a paycheck to care and provide for their families.
It never occurred to you that you can have more than one emergency at a time? For instance, having to pay for expensive chemo treatment drained your savings 3 months ago, but at least you've got a nice stable federal job! Oh wait... Also, remember these workers also had to deal with a 10% pay cut this year due to sequester furloughs, so their savings were already a bit light.
this month. And the next month. And the month after that. They will continue to print until all our problems are solved.
How does that saying go? : "May you live in interesting times".
You do realize most of the Tea Party wants the F-35 cut and the U.S. imperialistic military machine ended. Right?
$17 trillion in debt....
Nothing else, even a shutdown or default is undermining the dollar worse than running $1+ trillion deficits.
And if we don't stop, the government shutdown will eventually become PERMANENT. How much will that cost the economy folks.
Oh, and might I add, that the Democrats are punks because all they do is kick the bucket down past the next election.
Nothing else? How about the United States losing it's status as the reserve currency? How about the loss of said status causing the interest on that debt to skyrocket?
Yes, that debt is bad, but believing that it must be reduced at all costs - and one of those costs being increasing the interest rate on the debt to make the debt worse - is a bad solution.
The debt is bad yes. Other countries have bad debt too. The debt needs to be controlled. Risking default is not a way to control the debt, but amplify it.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!