The more urgent brinkmanship in Washington is surrounding the government shutdown, which is now officially the longest ever, with no end in sight.
The big picture: If furloughed workers are not on the government payroll, then there's an extremely high chance that the record 99-month streak of positive payrolls growth will come to an end this month.
- A research note entitled "No Gain, More Pain" from S&P Global Ratings estimates that the shutdown will reduce U.S. GDP by $1.2 billion per week, with that number rising as the shutdown continues.
- Markets will increasingly be flying blind, as government data releases are canceled or delayed due to the shutdown. Timely, accurate statistics matter!
Be smart: Federal workers haven't started breaking out their yellow vests quite yet. But this shutdown stings much more than any gasoline tax did in France — and look where that ended up.
Go deeper: All the ways Americans are feeling the effects of the shutdown