Weekly Round Up – October 4, 2013

Before we get to the good reads!

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A Few Good Reads

Here are a few of my favorite reads from the past week.

1. Gold price moves north on US debt ceiling drama:

Gold hit a nine-day high and may achieve its first positive quarter in a year as the US debt ceiling showdown pushes investors towards safe havens. Though few analysts expect to see the sort of golden rise that accompanied the 2011 debt ceiling drama, gold jumped to $1,354 on Sunday – the highest since September 20 – before settling in at just over $1,340. There are at present two deadlines looming: October 1 and October 17. Open this article

2. Shutdown is nothing: Debt ceiling debacle could be ugly

Tuesday’s government shutdown could be just the warm-up act. The failure by Congress on Monday to renew the federal budget into a new fiscal year is expected to be followed in a few weeks — no one knows exactly when — by an even more dangerous stalemate over raising the government’s borrowing authority.

“You can only see an endgame that ends with one side or the other blinking, and it’s hard to predict who that will be,” Tony Fratto, a Washington consultant and former Treasury official, told CNBC. “They may not blink until after government has taken a day or two of not paying some bills — which some would consider a technical default.” Open this article

3. Despite shutdown, most federal spending continues until debt limit is reached:

The partial government shutdown will inconvenience millions of Americans — national parks and monuments will close, hotels and restaurants that depend on tourism will lose business, and tens of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed while payments to some contractors may be stopped or delayed.

But the impact of the government shutdown will be fairly limited and manageable compared to what would happen if Congress and President Barack Obama cannot agree on how to raise the government’s borrowing limit before it is finally reached in about three weeks. Open this article

4. Debt standoff could ‘all but wipe out’ US recovery, economists warn:

Washington’s increasingly heated battle over raising the US debt limit could all but wipe out the country’s fragile recovery, economists warned on Friday. The row over raising the government’s $16.7tn borrowing limit is much more serious than the separate but politically linked tussles over the federal government’s spending authority, which could trigged a government shutdown if they are not resolved by Monday. While the shutdown would rattle the economy, economists said it would be nothing compared to a failure to raise the US’s debt ceiling. Open this article

5. House Republicans Want To Kill Net Neutrality As Part Of Their Debt Ceiling Bill:

Not sure what to make of this episode, but it matters and so here we are: A draft of provisions that Republican leaders in the House are attempting to demand in return for allowing the debt ceiling to be raised includes the elimination of net neutrality. The language of the legislative outline that the National Review obtained calls for the “blocking” of net neutrality.

Net neutrality, if you didn’t know, is the set of rules forcing ISPs treat traffic on their networks equally, not speeding or slowing any one piece of content more than any other. This matters as many companies that provide Internet access are also part of larger conglomerates that produce media. Those companies have an inherent incentive to speed their content and slow that of their rivals. Open this article