As I write this, the US government is in its 18th day of a putative “shutdown.” Some federal employees have been furloughed — sent home — while others are expected to show up each day but also warned to expect an empty pay envelope come Friday. As of tomorrow, the shutdown will become the second longest in history, surpassed only by a 32-day funding fight in December of 1995 and January of 1996.

Does anyone want to bet against president Donald Trump holding out for the record? He likes doing things in a big way. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went for 33 days just out of the cussedness he’s known for.

And at the moment, frankly, he’s winning this fight.  To understand why, consider what he’s really after. Hint: It’s not just a border wall.

On Christmas Day, Trump said that “many” of the furloughed/unpaid government employees “have said to me, communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall.”

Two days later, he tweeted “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?”

He was right on both counts. A major component of federal employment is in law enforcement and corrections. Many of these people are, and others might well become, part of the “Trump Democrat” portion of his base that put him over the top in 2016. More funding for “border security” means more jobs in their line of work.

If the shutdown pain isn’t too bad and doesn’t go on for too long, he’ll keep some of those government employees in, and move others into, his column for 2020.

And even if the shutdown pain IS bad, or drags on, many of them will blame Congress, not Trump. After all, he’s “only” asking for $5 billion for the wall. That’s 1/200th of what the government spent on Social Security last year. It’s about 1/800th of total federal expenditures last year. Pocket change! And Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are holding their paychecks over it!

Trump is also winning by signaling a divided Congress that things are going to start getting done his way or not getting done at all. It takes a 2/3 vote of both houses to override a presidential veto. Assuming Democrats (including those posturing as “independents”) vote unanimously, forcing a spending deal on Trump that he doesn’t accept would require 55 Republican Representatives and 20 Republican Senators to defect. That’s incredibly unlikely.

I personally don’t want Trump to get his wall, and I’d rather the federal government stayed “shut down” forever on general principle.

But if I was a betting man, I’d bet that the shutdown will end with something resembling the wall funding he’s demanding and with a cowed Congress. You read it here first.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Trump is winning shutdown theater,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 01/08/19
• “Shutdown Theater: Trump is Winning,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/10/19
• “Shutdown theater: Trump is winning by signaling a divide in Congress,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times, 01/10/19
• “Shutdown Theater: Trump is Winning,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/10/19
• “Shutdown theater: Trump is winning,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Palm Beach, Florida Post, 01/12/19

Cryptocurrencies had a rough ride in 2018. As of January 7, 2018, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap.com came to more than $800 billion, its highest point ever. As I write this on January 3, 2019, that total market capitalization is down to about $130 billion — about 1/6th of the market’s high point.

You might be surprised to learn that I’m still a cryptocurrency fan. But, just to be up front, yes, I am.

Not because I’m sitting on a huge pile of the stuff (as of this moment, my cryptocurrency holdings are worth less than $100 US), nor because I expect to make a killing speculating (when I get some crypto, I generally spend it without waiting very long to see if it increases in value).

I’m still enthusiastic about cryptocurrency because I’ve seen what it can do and make plausible predictions about what it will be able to do in the future. Cryptocurrency seizes control of money from governments and puts it in the hands of people. With improvements in its privacy aspects, that’s only going to become more true. In short, cryptocurrency fuels freedom.

But can it last? Will it win? I think that the last year, far from dispelling that notion, reinforces it. Let me explain.

Two kinds of noise related to cryptocurrency seem to have faded in tandem with the market cap’s downward trend. As one might expect, the ultra-bullish “Bitcoin will go to $100,000 real soon now!” voices have gone down in number and volume. But so have the voices comparing cryptocurrency to a Ponzi scheme or to the 17th century “tulip bubble.”

Yes, there are exceptions. One is Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, who still seems to think that transaction costs and lack of “tethers” to fiat government currencies will make crypto a bad bet. Of course, Krugman also said, in 1998, that “[b]y 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” So however expert he may be in other areas, I doubt I’m alone in discounting his predictive abilities when it comes to technological advancements.

This year-long market correction has been exactly that — a correction toward real values. After a period of hype (“Initial Coin Offerings” based on bizarre use cases) and scams (“pump and dumps” cons based on new fly-by-night “altcoins”), the wheat is separating from the chaff, the fraud is settling down to a level consistent with the rest of human activity, and the financial “mainstream” attitude has gone from dismissive to curious to “how do we get in on this?”

Cryptocurrency is getting better and better at what it was meant to do. It facilitates transactions without regard to political borders, it safeguards the records of those transactions through a distributed ledger system (“blockchain”), and to varying degrees (depending on which currency and the individual user’s habits) it protects the privacy of those who use it from prying eyes.

Cryptocurrency, and the freedom it entails, are here to stay. Welcome to the future.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Why I am still a cryptocurrency enthusiast,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 01/03/19
• “Why I am Still a Cryptocurrency Enthusiast, 2019 Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 01/04/19
• “Why I am Still a Cryptocurrency Enthusiast, 2019 Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/04/19
• “Cryptocurrency fuels freedom and is here to stay,” by Thomas L. Knapp, The Nation (Bangkok, Thailand), 01/05/19
• “Cryptocurrency here to stay,” by Thomas L. Knapp, The Royal Gazette (Bermuda), 01/05/19
• “Why I am still a cryptocurrency enthusiast,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Cyprus Mail, 01/06/19
• “Why I am Still a Cryptocurrency Enthusiast, 2019 Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/06/19
• “Why I am still a cryptocurrency enthusiast, 2019 edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florence, South Carolina News Journal [web  and print], 01/09/19