Hi, everybody.

By the time you hear this, it is very, very likely that we are hitting the history books with the second longest government shutdown since 1980, when these sort of shutdowns started to

happen. That would be 21 days of a government shutdown. The longest ever on the books is 34 days.

So from around the time that you're hearing this, it'll be potentially another two weeks before

we hit the longest government shutdown ever. So just some context. Yes, the longest in recent

history, for sure, but not the longest ever. And we'll leave room for a miracle. But even if

there is a miracle, Congress just doesn't move that fast.

So even if there is some sort of agreement that comes together, you still could see several

days before that agreement actually leads to the government reopening.

And because of this, our next story has a different positioning than I thought when I first

recorded it and actually pushed it to get out sooner because I wanted to bring you to a place

that right now, you cannot go. One of the big questions with any government shutdown is what are

the ripple effects? You know, what are the

actual ripple effects for the economy at large? What about what's going on in Washington, D.C.?

How do you quantify that? And the reality is that there's a lot of big numbers that can

fill it around, but no one really knows. If it's a short shutdown, then what often can happen

is you get suddenly a lack of activity and then a rush of

activity. And so the impact can sort of be, you know, flush. It's not there's just, you know,

you lose some and then you gain some and you're back, you're back in action. The longer the shutdown

goes on, the more ripple effects you can see in a variety of different ways.

And so I just want to focus on one.

Right now, if you were planning a family trip and going to Washington, D.C., maybe you planned it all year long.

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