IT IS A LOT MORE THAN JUST 800,000 FEDERAL WORKERS. A LOT MORE. MILLIONS MORE.

You cannot get much farther from using federal services that are shut down, than me. Than my family.  It was kind of abstract. Yes... it was a shutdown that was obviously creating havoc. Federal parks. Border employees. TSA. Plus...the employees were lower level, paycheck-to-paycheck peeps. So they are immediately out of money. So that sucks. But what does that mean to people like me...far from the vortex?

Turns out, quite a lot.

I am doing something on a piece of property involving a mortgage...thus involving HUD and FHA...uh oh....urns out, lots of that is shutdown and on auto-pilot. You can get some stuff done online, but if you want a real person...maybe too bad. So I am being stalled in a financial transaction that is important to me. So, all of a sudden, I am involved, and negatively effected.

Travel by air? UH OH... TSA snags and delays. Airline revenues. Airport levels of satisfaction. Travel misery, more than a "happy" TSA inflicts. They are ordinarily a bunch of terse bullies... so now? ... Katie bar the door. Too bad for them, and for US... I will drive for a month or so, thanks.

So are the brokers and agents and staff and appraisers and all the people who live on these transactions. So it’s a LOT more than some federal employees. Just in MY ORBIT, there are tons of ripples and ramifications.

PLUS... what about the retailers who SELL to the government employees and all the contractors and employees and recipients? The little stores, tire shops, produce stands, furniture stores???...nationwide, the economy and lives suffer.

My son has a bankruptcy law practice in Orlando. The courts are pared down to bare nibs. All kinds of things are not getting done--or are delayed and complicated---, scheduled, filed, executed...and so, all the people that work with or against my son are out of work...banks, lenders, mortgage holders, appliance dealers, property managers...ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE effected.

So..just in my little circle, myself, my family, and many many people who depend on things to being up and running. And they aren’t.

It is a LOT more than just the 800,000 employees. A lot. It is disrupting the entire framework of the country.