Last Time The Lights Went Out – Government Shutdown’s Greatest Hits – Dec. 1995 – Past Daily Reference Room

. . .and the definition of insanity is . . . .?

Click on the link here for Audio Player – News reports on Government Shutdown – December 16-21, 1995 – CBS Radio News – Gordon Skene Sound Collection

With word today of the impasse on Capitol Hill and the resulting shutdown of Government, the flurry of finger pointing starts. And 17 years ago it was pretty much the same thing. The faces, for the most part, have changed. The tactics have remained pretty much the same. The lunatic fringe is more vocal now and the polarization is more pronounced than it was 17 years ago.

But in December 1995 it was the culmination of events that began with the first (four day) shutdown in February of that year. The tantrums continued. The people suffered. Life went on. The Shutdown dragged on for 21 days, the second time around.

Indications are this shutdown will have bigger consequences. In 1995 no one knew what those consequences would be. And in 2013 no one really does either. There are predictions of backlash, revenge at the polls during the 2014 mid-term elections and widespread panic. Since October is historically Padded Cell Season on Wall Street, anything can happen.

But most likely as before, life goes on  – and there are bigger concerns to deal with – bigger consequences. Sometimes, the name of the game is distraction. And sometimes, people in high places just throw tantrums because they can.

Either way . . .

So here, as a reminder of the last time Capitol Hill shut the Government down, are a series of reports from December 16-21, 1995 via The CBS World News Roundup. Something to compare notes to.

And the band will surely play on.

Related articles

• Every government shutdown ever, in one chart (washingtonpost.com)
• Government Shutdown – What Does it Mean? (guardianlv.com)
• Government shutdown 1995: Were you there? (pennlive.com)
• Technology makes this government shutdown more dangerous than 1995 (techi.com)

October 19, 1987 – Wall Street Lays Another Egg.

Wall Street – October 19, 1987 – the doom was palpable.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: News for October 19, 1987

“Not since Black Friday in 1929”, “The worst single-day drop in history”, “the bottom has fallen out”. That’s what this day in 1987 sounded like, or at least most of it. A 500-point drop in the Stock Market signaled widespread panic all around the world, as financial institutions and investors scrambled to recover plunging losses.

President Reagan, like Candidate John McCain in 2008 remarked there was no reason for the drop, that all indications were the economy was healthy. Clearly, a lot of questions were being asked to go along with the hang-wringing.

Here are hourly news reports starting with the CBS 1:00 pm news, and a re-cap from American Public Radio.

Until 2008, this was the worst day on record.

Perhaps you remember it?

Related articles

• 1987 Crash as seen through TV (ritholtz.com)
• Wall St. Tanks on Black Monday (October 19, 1987) (thestarryeye.typepad.com)
• Black Monday Echoes With Computers Failing to Restore Confidence – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Lessons from the 1987 stock market crash, 25 years later (cbsnews.com)
• U.S. Economist Stephen Guilfoyle Weighs In on What Lessons Can Be Learned From the Stock Market Crash of 1987 (5min.com)
• WSJ Reporters of Two Generations Remember 1987 Crash (blogs.wsj.com)
• Déjà vu: Could Black Monday happen again? (business.financialpost.com)
• The stock market crash of 1987 (bbc.co.uk)
• MarketBeat Podcast: Remembering the Crash of 1987 (blogs.wsj.com)

October 11, 1979 – Castro Comes – Wall Street Goes, And Capitol Hill Haggles Over Abortion Forever.

The good old days, when a 48 point drop was cause for widespread freakouts.

Click on the link here for Audio Player:News for October 11, 1979

October, it would seem, is not historically without its surprises. On this day in 1979 New York City was turned upside down over a United Nations visit from Cuba‘s Fidel Castro, his first since 1959. Air Traffic was disrupted, street traffic was disrupted, and all told the biggest security nightmare the city had seen in a very long time.

But Cuba was in the news a lot over the previous months. A new cause-for-alarm was being considered by the U.S. over the renewed presence of Soviet troops on Cuban soil. So concerned was Washington that a detachment of some 1,800 Marines and other Military personnel were heading to Guantanamo for “exercises”.

But if New York didn’t have enough headaches with Fidel, it more than made up for them with headaches from Wall Street. News of a 48 point drop in the Dow triggered panic and a run on Valium. As of this day, everyone was holding their breath to see what was going to happen next.

Not exactly holding their breath, but actively engaged in tossing brickbats was Congress over a Funding Fight that included that perrennial, Abortion Funding and that incidental, Pay Raises. Seems the dilemma had to do with some members of Congress in favor of Abortion Funding and not in favor of a Pay Raise, while other members of Congress in favor of Pay Raises but not in favor of Abortion Funding. Seems both caveats were jammed into the same emptor.

But there was the World Series to think about. And while the rest of the world was quickly going to hell, Game 2 was getting ready to go that evening.

All that, and a bunch more, via Dallas Townsend and The CBS World News Roundup for October 11, 1979.