Fiancial safety

From Parks to Airports, How a Shutdown Would Affect Federal Agencies

Art Del Cueto wants the wall, but he also needs a paycheck.

Border Patrol agents like Mr. Del Cueto — in the crossfire of the government shutdown fight over President Trump’s demand for a border wall — are preparing to work without pay if the government shuts down Friday night.

“It’s nerve-racking,” said Mr. Del Cueto, who is a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union, and works in Arizona. “It sucks, to be honest.”

Federal bureaucrats have become adept at blunting the effect of shutdowns on federal services, and the two shutdowns this year — a 69-hour interruption in January followed by a nine-hour funding lapse in February — had a negligible impact.

Transportation Security Administration agents, deemed “essential employees,” would have to work without pay during a government shutdown.CreditAl Drago for The New York Times

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Fiancial safety

Putin’s revenge may see petro-yuan replace petrodollar

The key to the coming petro-yuan lies in Moscow. And, if the Chinese currency eventually succeeds in usurping the long-standing petrodollar, Washington will only have itself to blame.

News that China plans to launch a yuan-denominated oil futures contract by the end of this year has come as a surprise to many analysts. However, Russia experts aren’t startled in the slightest because this move has been coming since Moscow abandoned its quarter-century attempt to integrate with the West, following the 2014 Ukraine crisis. A catastrophe which the Kremlin blames on the United States and the European Union, as part of what it considers to be an attempt to reduce Russian influence in its "near abroad.”

Beijing’s scheme aims to shift trade in “black gold” from petrodollars to a proposed petro-yuan. Which benefits China by making its currency more attractive internationally and providing greater energy security. However, the biggest winners may well be in Moscow. Because any decline in the dollar’s status severely dilutes Washington’s ability to wage economic war against Russia, via sanctions.