Reaching the debt ceiling is far more terrifying than falling off a cliff

Reaching the debt ceiling is far more terrifying than falling off a cliff. "Alberta Times" Investors are worried that if the United States falls into the "fiscal cliff", the stock market may collapse after New Year's Day. In fact, what is even scarier...

Reaching the debt limit is far scarier than falling off a cliff "Alberta Times" Investors are worried that if the United States falls off the "fiscal cliff", the stock market may collapse after New Year's Day. In fact, what is even more frightening is that Washington failed to reach an agreement in time to raise the national debt ceiling after a few weeks, because this may lead to the federal government defaulting on debt, another reduction in credit rating, and panic in the financial market. In fact, the "fiscal cliff" has not appeared. The Ministry of Finance has begun to take a series of measures on the 31st to provide the federal government with funds to ensure operations and stop the issuance of new bonds for two government pension funds, thereby avoiding an immediate debt default and delaying the default until at least the end of February. Market strategists said that if the fiscal cliff falls, resulting in tax increases and severe government spending cuts, it will inevitably seriously damage consumer and business confidence, but it will take a while for the U.S. economy to fall into recession. Congress has many opportunities during this period to take remedial measures and reverse some of the effects of falling off a cliff. This is the reason why the U.S. stock market still shows no signs of collapse, but only gradually declines and intensifies volatility, and it also allows Washington to ignore it. In the past, when stock prices collapsed, Congress was forced to take action. Treasury Secretary Gaynor said that the United States will technically reach the national debt limit by the end of this year. The White House has stated that it does not intend to negotiate on the national debt, taking the same approach as in 2011, but it may be forced to repeat the same mistakes, which is the market's worst nightmare. In the 2011 national debt negotiations, original procedural disputes triggered fierce confrontations, and the market plummeted one after another. Even after the bill to increase the national debt ceiling was passed, the stock market continued to plummet, showing a vote of no confidence in Washington's operational capabilities. The Standard & Poor's credit rating agency also downgraded the U.S. debt credit rating by one level for the first time. In the four weeks to August 21 of that year, the S&P 500 index plummeted 16%. There are already signs in the options market that investors are wary of January. Investigations and Prosecutions of Employing Illegal Immigrants Hit a New High As President Obama vows to promote immigration reform after being re-elected, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (USICE) inspections of companies employing illegal immigrants in the past fiscal year have reached a new high. This inspection has always been one of the focuses of Obama's immigration policy. The Obama administration supports first checking illegal immigrants in the United States and improving border security, and then comprehensive immigration reform. According to statistics, the number of USICE audits of employers' labor qualification forms has increased from 250 in the 2007 fiscal year to 3,000 in 2012. From the fiscal year 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines paid by the company increased sharply from 1 million yuan to 13 million yuan. The number of company managers arrested increased to 238. When Obama recently talked about the issue of immigration reform that he would address in his second term, he pointed out that any measures would include imposing fines on companies that deliberately employ illegal immigrants. Although this is not a new position, it may be a policy that Obama will highlight when the authorities begin to work on reforming the immigration system. USICE inspected thousands of companies at that time, and 339 companies were fined in fiscal year 2011. In the 2011 fiscal year, the most recent data obtained by The Associated Press, the median fine was $11,000; Texas led the list with 63 companies fined, followed by New Jersey with 37 companies. It is reported that employers are required by regulations to require employees to fill out the I-9 form to declare that they can work legally in the United States. Currently, employers only need to confirm that the identification documents appear to be authentic documents. The company hunt is part of a $138 million workplace enforcement effort in which USICE agents must go through company payroll rolls one by one to match names that don't match Social Security numbers and other identity databases.