I would keep snacks and beverages on the ready. “C’mon in! The iced tea is cold and the muffins are just about done. Now, what were you saying about cumulonimbus formations and their impact on dairy production?”

I love the animals with bone ears. Dogs, cats, rats. Should have people with bone ears on the sides of their skulls. That would be fantastic.

Anyone who didn’t see this as the pre-Nobel publicity stunt it was is an absolute nut sack of a human being.

I think I’m ok with this. Before you lynch me, let me explain.

In the halls of Congress there are super rich, long-term, and likely lobby-fed members, and then there are those average people who ran on people-focused platforms and got elected locally. The first group are not going to be hurt by stopping a paycheck that is probably a rounding error in their actual net worth. And those individuals could use a shutdown and the knowledge that the opposition can’t survive for too long without a paycheck to force capitulation. So, keep paying the opposition during a shutdown to remove some of the leverage the powerful elite have over those representing the people.

A lot of generalizations in there but that’s where my head goes. Still shitty for the country and certainly for those who end up furlowed or worse, for sure. But at least the lawmakers holding out for reform aren’t having their own destitution held over their heads.

This is an amazing nuance I think may be lost on many.

Yeah, since I wrote that I’ve been trying to think of a real world example and haven’t come up with one. Perhaps my ramblings are purely hypothetical or maybe pulled directly from my ass.

Not defending PE, but there are situations where this type of thing would make sense. If the rates were low enough a company could cash out it’s property value using something like this and use the cash for an expansion, to make a moonshot investment, or maybe as a last ditch to survive in a downturn.

That’s not what’s happening here, but turning real assets to cash through debt to then invest in the business is a decent tactic.

Ding ding ding!