Is there any person or group that is happy and/or benefits from the US government shutdown? Is anyone saying, “Wow! My bank balance is going up, things are looking rosier than ever, and praise Trump, I hope the shutdown lasts a long time!”?
I bet guys named Vladimir are enjoying the hell out of this circus.
Stranger
Putin is the obvious answer
Other than that, probably the anti-Trump forces in a general way, as he is looking like a more of a buffoon that usual.
How does Putin specifically benefit from a partial government shutdown? I’m not seeing it.
Pure speculation, but I’ll bet there are more than a few folks who aren’t in a financial bind that are loving the vacation.
I reckon that Grover “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” Norquist is tickled pink about the shutdown.
Putin wants to do bad things. The primary force which could stop him from doing bad things is the US. If the US were weaker, we would have less ability to stop him from doing the things he wants. The shutdown weakens the US. Therefore, Putin benefits from the shutdown.
People with immigration court dates during the shutdown who would have gotten bad news. Since the already overloaded courts are closed, those cases are getting pushed to the next available dates. IIRC that’s mostly falling in 2022. So if they were likely to get deported or have their asylum request denied they now get around a three year extension in America.
I would guess that headhunters are getting more replies to their cold calls these days, if they’re contacting government employees…
Anyone seeking to bribe or corrupt a government employee.
Anyone who is the enemy of America.
This might sound weird coming from a federal employee caught up in it…
…but I think the main beneficiary of this shutdown is America. There has been a long-standing belief that taxes are too high by those who take government services for granted. Sometimes it helps to be reminded of what you’re paying for.
I’m having a hard time envisioning a worker somewhere, missing a paycheck with no end in sight, chuckling to himself, “This is really the best! If we go without pay long enough, The Great Wall will be built overnight, Mexican rapists can’t get to my daughter and the cocaine dealers can charge my son double the usual price. Viva America!!”
Credit Card companys. More people will charge everyday expenses, trying to keep their head above water. Bloated balances and higher payments. Of course if it lasts long enough the CC company’s won’t be getting repaid. It all depends on how long the shutdown lasts.
Yup, we’re not paying federal prison guards, I’d bet people hoping to smuggle drugs into prison would find it easier to bribe guards to look the other way.
Well, I know fellow federal employees are at least getting a chance to catch up on housework, yard work, etc. But it’s not like they can leave town and go on an actual vacation, because they can be called back to work any day. And no matter how good your finances, a missed paycheck still messes up your financial planning and cause stress.
I think Trump is dumb enough to think a government shutdown means all the investigations into him stop.
How does this partial government shutdown prevent the United States from preventing Putin from doing bad things?
To him, it’s a war of attrition. Anything that weakens the United States in the long term is good.
Are you thinking “little-picture”? As though 1 or 2 Kremlin-linked companies are going to get building permits because a relevant regulator is on furlough? “Little-picture” is how Donald Trump thinks.
Vladimir Putin thinks of the big picture. To use chess as an analogy, Putin is a grandmaster, while Trump is a pigeon who knocks over all the pieces, craps on the board, then struts around like it won the game.
The United States is hemorrhaging in world prestige. Since the rejection of TPP, Pacific countries are making deals with China. Since NATO was bad-mouthed, European countries have moved perceptibly away from the U.S. and toward the East. With the latest Trump tweets on Syria, Russia has become a key power in the Middle East. As a very crude guesstimate, the hemorrhaging to U.S. trade, financial strength and world prestige, if somehow expressed in dollars, is in the ballpark of Billions per Week — far more than the value of new hotel deals that Ivanka and Don Jr. will get from their Dad’s ploys. This is good for Putin’s global ambitions.
Putin is delighted to see American politics descend lower and lower into stupidity and chaos. He was happy to work hard for Trump hoping to get a weakened President Hillary. That Trump won was just an unexpected bonus.
There’s probably some on-going contracts as well, that will continue until renewed or canceled. Leases on vacated buildings. Foreclosures.
Maybe some bets in the finance markets.