Tag Archives: government shutdown

Shutdown Blues

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Hopefully, this post will be obsolete soon. However you feel – right/left, red/blue, D/R – the dysfunction of the Federal government shutdown is spooking people. In fact, they are saying it could affect your holiday shopping:

A big concern is that a prolonged government shutdown could severely hurt the economy and necessarily, consumer spending. For each week the government remains shut, the U.S. economy would lose 0.15 percent of annualized growth.  TheLedger.com

Mind you, this comes at a time – the last few months of the year – when retailers typically pull in 20 to 40 per cent of their annual numbers.

And, let’s not forget the folks who are making (or not making) the money that the retailers are chasing. Here, according to TheFiscalTimes.com, are the cities that can expect to take the hardest hit…

  • Washington DC (no duh!)
  • Bethesda MD (lots of govt contractors)
  • Norfolk VA (huge Navy base)
  • Honolulu HI (lots of military)
  • Dayton OH (huge Air Force base)
  • El Paso TX (Army base, Beaumont Hospital)
  • Colorado Springs CO (lots of military)
  • Oklahoma City, OK (Air Force, Federal offices)
  • Albuquerque, NM (THREE Air Force bases!)
  • Bakersfield, CA (Air Force)

The numbers are based on how much Federal income affects the local economy, with DC at around 18% and Bakersfield at around 7%.

So, truly, no politics here! Some folks think the shutdown is pure evil. Some think it’s a righteous protest. Others think that it is a bad thing that might lead to a better way of running things in DC. But, if you are affected, it stinks!

So, are you feeling the pinch? How are you coping? Let us know over at the MindField Online Facebook page and have a better weekend!

PS… I was going to include a picture, as I often do – something like “Uncle Sam turning his empty pockets inside out.” But I Googled that, got 20,000,000 results and got too depressed.