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[Frumple]

I really doubt it'll last a week, looks like they can fix this within 48 hours. They'll punt it to February and then I bet they'll punt it to March where that debt ceiling is lurking.

Like, it'd probably be for the better if it didn't last even a week, but so far as being able to fix it within 48 hours, well. Able and going to are different turns of phrase.

Considering the last however many months now this CR stuff has been going and how long before that the GOP in particular has been shitting the bed regarding making a budget, I'd wager there's room to be concerned someone's going to manage to crit fail bridging the difference between those turns of phrase. Again.

E: Oh, neat, there's a new bill proposed along the same lines as during some of the old shutdowns, calling for (future) congress(es) to not get paid during a shutdown. Maybe pigs'll fly and it'll actually get voted on this time.

[Folly]

Like, it'd probably be for the better if it didn't last even a week, but so far as being able to fix it within 48 hours, well. Able and going to are different turns of phrase.

CNN is estimating that the shutdown will cost taxpayers roughly $6,000,000,000 per week, so we've got a little over three weeks before the shutdown becomes more expensive than the stupid wall.

And yeah...it's no longer about policies. Trump refuses to yield any ground now, on the principle that he will not tolerate hostage-taking. And Democrats are similarly inclined. So no further negotiating or compromising is going to happen, at least until things get really ugly.

[Sheb]

Stupid question, but how does the shutdown end up costing money?

[wierd]

The government makes contracts with outside organizations to get things done.  When there is a lapse in payments made, there is interest charged.

That is just ONE of the ways that it costs money.  Another, is that failure to remit payment on schedule for services rendered causes a reduction in good faith that the government will be able to pay regularly in the future, causing an increase in interest rates (which will then cost the govt more over time than if it had prevented the shutdown), which is ANOTHER way that it costs money.

There are of course, yet more ways that it happens, but those are the big ones.

[martinuzz]

Can't those outside contractors even have government property seized and sold to pay their bills?

EDIT: ohwait, ofcourse not, that would need a court ruling, and the courts aren't being paid, so no court hearings I guess.

[Ametsala]

Stupid question, but how does the shutdown end up costing money?

I can think of a couple of ways:

1) Government offices don't work, resulting in all the paperwork piling up. Whether it's people applying for pensions, visas, work permits, etc, or businesses applying for building permits or submitting environmental impact studies for their projects*, none of it is being processed. The sooner the paperwork gets done, the sooner the affected people and businesses can get on with their business: circulating money to keep the economy running.
    Once the shutdown ends, going through the mountain of accumulated paperwork takes time, meaning longer processing times, which won't get shorter quickly unless extra personnel is hired and trained to shift through the piles. Longer processing times keep people and businesses from going on with their business for longer...

2) A big pile of money stops circulating when the government doesn't pay its bills, and the government workers don't get paid. The government workers, the workers in companies that the government doesn't pay its bills to, the people whose pension applications or work permits aren't processed, and the construction workers who don't have work because the building permit hasn't been processed, need to conserve money and start only buying the necessities (e.g. food, water, electricity). If people don't buy new phones or use hotels, hotels and phone making companies need to cut staff, resulting in more people not having money to buy new phones or use hotels...

The longer the shutdown lasts, the more noticeable these effects become.

*Just some educated guesses on what paperwork US government handles. I can imagine TrumpUS not caring about visas, work permits or environmental impact analysis.

TL;DR: Money stops going around in the US, and the economy starts grinding to a halt. This will affect the world economy as well.

[Loud Whispers]

15 year old British hobgoblin successfully impersonated head of CIA
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/19/british-15-year-old-gained-access-intelligence-operations-afghanistan/

A 15-year-old gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be the head of the CIA to gain access to his computers, a court has heard.
The teenager persuaded call handlers at an internet giant that he was John Brennan, the then director of the CIA, to gain access to his computers and an FBI helpdesk that he was Mark Giuliano, then the agency’s Deputy Director, to re-gain access to an intelligence database.
He also targeted the US Secretary of Homeland Security and Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence from his semi-detached council house in Coalville.
Gamble taunted his victims online, released personal information, bombarded them with calls and messages, downloaded pornography onto their computers and took control of their iPads and TV screens, a court heard.
John Lloyd-Jones QC, prosecuting, said that Gamble founded Crackas With Attitude (CWA) in 2015, telling a journalist: “It all started by me getting more and more annoyed about how corrupt and cold blooded the US Government are so I decided to do something about it.”
Mr Lloyd-Jones said that it was a common misconception that the group were hackers when in fact they used “social engineering” to gain access to emails, phones, computers and law enforcement portals.

Gamble, who has pleaded guilty to ten offences under the computer misuse act, first targeted Mr Brennan and gained access to his Verizon internet account by pretending first to be employee of the company and then Mr Brennan himself, building up an increasingly detailed picture.
At first he was denied access to his computers as he could not name Mr Brennan’s first pet, but on later calls the handler changed the pin and security questions.
He used similar methods to access Mr Brennan’s AOL account and eventually Gamble was able to access his emails, contacts, his iCloud storage account and his wife’s iPad remotely.

Mr Lloyd-Jones QC said: “He accessed some extremely sensitive accounts referring to, among other things, military operations and intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran.”
Gamble, who is now 18, later posted sensitive information on Twitter and Wikileaks and taunted officials about his access, sometimes using the tag #freePalestine and claiming it was because the US Government was “killing innocent people”.
Gamble used similar techniques to hack the home broadband of Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and was able listened to his voicemails and send texts from his phone.
He bombarded Mr Johnson and his wife with calls, asking her: “Am I scaring you?” and left messages threatening to “bang his daughter”, the court heard.

Around October 2015, when Gamble turned 16, gained access to Mr Giuliano’s home accounts by pretending to be the FBI boss and using the information gained he accessed the FBI’s Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (Leap).
Mr Lloyd-Jones QC described it as “a gateway providing law enforcement agencies, intelligence groups and criminal justice agencies access to beneficial resources”.
This included criminal intelligence and details of police officers and government employees, and Gamble boasted: “This has to be the biggest hack, I have access to all the details the Feds use for background checks.”
The FBI had realised that their system was breached and the password was changed, but at one point Gamble managed to change it and regain access by pretending to be Mr Giuliano in a call to the helpdesk.

So about ur dudes

[martinuzz]

I guess heads will roll at the CIA

[Loud Whispers]

I guess heads will roll at the CIA

CIA theme right now

[McTraveller]

You know, we had a government shutdown in 2013.  And some in the 90s. And 80s.  They really aren't that rare (in the past 40 years anyway).

[hector13]

Don Trump’s comments on the 2013 shutdown resurface.

[JoshuaFH]

Don Trump’s comments on the 2013 shutdown resurface.

I agree President Trump, if we're gonna start firing people, we gotta start at the top. Now, who's the topmost guy, hmmmmm.....

[martinuzz]

What happens if a government employee cannot pay his rent due to prolonged shutdown? Can they be evicted, or is there some legal protection against that for government shutdown times?

[Reelya]

I doubt America has any such protections if you're in a private rental situation. Each state probably has some legal protections against eviction, however, not being able to pay the rent isn't a protected reason against eviction.

[Frumple]

What happens if a government employee cannot pay his rent due to prolonged shutdown? Can they be evicted, or is there some legal protection against that for government shutdown times?

They can be evicted, yes. There's not much of the US economy terribly enthusiastic about IOUs, least when there's not interest attached to it, and most of the parts that have interest attached to it don't exactly like statements like "I'm not getting paid and don't know how long it will last."

Incidentally, it usually takes a while to get on something like SNAP (i.e. food stamps), particularly when much of the relevant offices happen to be understaffed or closed.

... also most government workers are pretty normal so far as american workers go, fiscal security wise. Which is another way of saying they live mostly paycheck to paycheck and there's not many pay cycles (i.e. months) of window available before things start fairly rapidly turning dire for them

Basically, if you're assuming any of this has much in the way of protections in place for directly effected workers during the period the shutdown is ongoing, you've made a common mistake for those unfamiliar with the USA of thinking there's reasonable forethought involved in any of the processes involved, on that front. Because there isn't. The closest to it is for essential personnel that are still working. Everyone else is kinda' up the proverbial shit creek, and the department that issues paddles wasn't classified as essential.