WARNING: The Worst Government Shutdown Yet.

Well, the government shutdown is upon us

again. And not a terrible surprise given

that the longest government shutdown

we've ever had in history was under

Trump 1.0. That was in January of 2019

lasted 35 days. The runner up for the

second longest government shutdown was

Clinton during the soft landing of 1995,

21 days, followed by Obama 16 days.

Which means if you combine Clinton and

Obama, they got slightly more than Trump

1.0. But none of that really matters.

We've had 10 historical shutdowns in

history. They are almost always a buy

the dip opportunity because they create

uncertainty. Markets don't like

uncertainty, and we usually say buy the

dip. The only reason you might not want

to buy the dip is if we have a plunge

into some kind of economic jobs

recession. That does not seem to be on

the radar at all right now. Now, we're

going to talk about what's going on with

the government shutdown, what the issues

are, and what each side is saying, and

what the odds of a shutdown are, as well

as what VA is threatening, but what you

really got to understand uh is broadly

government shutdowns, not that big of a

deal. Now that it's combined though with

the potential for jobs recession, a

little poopy doobie. Now, this morning's

PCE spending numbers for August don't

really suggest that there's a lot of

concern that people were going to get

laid off anytime soon. Real personal

spending increased more than personal

income increased. We see more spending

than we saw during this, you know, sort

of the the save and uncertainty period

of April and May. We talked about that

in our PCE video this morning. And

following the PCE numbers coming in with

an ad expectations read for this month,

but a slightly downward revisions for

last month, the Atlanta Fed took this

data and then what they do is they

adjust their inflation adjustments as

well as taking the latest sort of

spending data and they update their GDP

model. Look at this folks. I mean, tell

me this doesn't look bullish, at least

for now. GDP at the Atlanta Fed now

increased to 3.9%.

Private domestic investment growth at

4.1%.

Real personal consumption expenditures

at 3.4% and net exports growing revised

up to.58 percentage points of growth.

That all leading to a 3.9 percentage

point gain in GDP estimates for Q3. Now,

keep in mind, these are aggressive Q3

estimates that could be amplified by

those downward revisions in inflation

that we're just not seeing as much of

that inflation yet. Uh, you know, who

knows? Maybe we won't. Maybe there's,

you know, people are taking it in the

margins, so to speak. But what's

incredible here is as while it is

possible that lower inflation expect or

like readings are leading this GDP

number to be artificially high because

you know if you subtract out less

inflation GDP looks bigger right uh

while that's possible it does seem like

the underlying consumer is still

cranking which is great of course now we

got this potential for a government

shutdown and more layoffs at the same

time as we get jobs reports which this

creates some nervousness. So what's

actually going on here? Okay, so John

Thun says we're probably plunging

towards a government shutdown. The

Senate technically goes back to work cuz

they're off right now at home in their

districts September 29th. The House of

Representatives are tentatively expected

to be back after October 1st, so like

Thursday, Friday of next week. But

Republicans might purposefully not bring

the House of Representatives back next

week so they can keep the pressure on

the Senate to get a continuing

resolution passed. That's a clean

continuing resolution. Now, what that

refers to is Republicans just want to

kick the can down the road, fund the

government for about six extra weeks,

and let's not talk about the Democratic

demands. Democrats are demanding

money. Now, we're going to talk about

that in just a moment. Donald Trump did

have a bipartisan meeting planned with

congressional leaders, Republicans and

Democrats, but ended up abruptly

cancelling that, deciding that no

meeting with congressional leaders could

possibly be productive. That's a quote

from Donald Trump. And then ended up

cancelling talks with Schumer, you know,

Chuck Schumer and Hakee Jeff, Democratic

leaders of the Senate and and House.

Now, Mr. But, and this is a scary one,

he wants this government shutdown in my

opinion because he wants mass government

layoffs. And that's the big risk factor

here is that we end up getting big

government layoffs that are sort of like

Doge 2.0.

Now, Democrats are responding to this

and they're saying, "Hey, like, dude,

we're not going to be intimidated.

They're going to fire workers anyway."

Hakee Jeff literally tweeted, "We will

not be intimidated by your threat to

engage in mass firings. get lost. And

you know, the Brookings Institute is

arguing that Democrats that have no

control right now at all of the House,

Senate, or White House are kind of being

pressured by their constituents to be a

little bit more ballsy. Like a lot of

people look at Chuck Schumer and they're

like, "Dude, you were a wet blanket the

last time we had a potential for a

government shutdown." Uh, and uh, he

kind of just rolled over towards Donald

Trump. Well, so what did you end up

with? A lot of people kind of making fun

of Democrats for that one and blaming

Democrats. Now, Democrats are kind of

digging in their heels, seeing this as

an opportunity to shut down the

government and lay the blame on Trump.

Now, right now, the Trump administration

needs seven Democrats, which I guess

could be two independents, but really,

you need seven votes because you have 53

Republicans, and you need to get past

the filibuster. So, you need 60 votes on

this. Now, uh, with the commentary right

now or or at least like what Democrats

are demanding are two things. Number

one, they want affordable care act

subsidies, Obamacare subsidies. Uh, and

number two, they want the restoration of

Medicaid benefits. Those are for lower

income individuals. So, uh, ACA

subsidies are currently set to expire

December 31st of this year. and they may

start showing up like those like higher

prices related to those subsidies

expiring may start showing up in annual

renewals when the renewal window opens

November 1st. And this is where a lot of

people are worried that people just

aren't going to renew their health

insurance because they're going to see

out-ofpocket expenses potentially

balloon as much as 70%. If these

Affordable Care Act subsidies do not

pass. Now, the total expectation over

the next 10 years for the Affordable

Care Act subsidies and Medicaid benefits

of about a trillion dollars that were

cut from the Big Beautiful Bill. That

was a way that Republicans were able to

get the Big Beautiful Bill to have a

lower price tag was cutting Medicaid.

So, basically like giving tax breaks to

richer people and to AI companies, but

taking Medicaid benefits away from

poorer individuals.

That's how they made the big beautiful

bill only cost $3 trillion, by ripping a

trillion dollars away from poor people

via Medicaid benefits. Democrats are

like, "Yo, double bird, bro. F you. We

want a reversal here. We want that

trillion dollars back." So, the CBO was

estimating that this is going to be

about $1.4 trillion over the next 10

years. And that's what Democrats are

looking for. Now, I want to show you

some of these actual articles and some

of the components that go into this. I

do quickly want to shout out if you're

not part of the Meet Kevin membership

yesterday or already. We had a great

bounce here on our 414 line on Tesla.

I've been calling for Tesla to go down

to this 414 line over the last couple

days and yesterday it just tanked

basically straight down to 414. So,

you're not part of this analysis yet.

You want to be a part of this. We also

gave warnings that this is not the best

week for call options on the cues. After

we hit our $600 price target, we said

just wait. Now is the time to maybe plan

out for October options or further out.

Why? Because of these government

shutdown fears. And so if you're not yet

a member of the Meet Kevin membership,

consider joining. Got a lot of people

joining today. Thank you so much for

joining and being a part of the Meet

Kevin membership.

>> Coupon code expiring soon. Coupon linked

below

>> is at meetc.com. You know where it is.

Okay. So now what we've got to do is we

got to analyze a little bit of like what

what is being said from VA and what is

in this memo from the federal

government. Take a look at this. This

memo is kind of wild. All right. Ready

for this? So the memo is right here.

This is the memo from the uh uh

basically from the White House. Uh and

so this is getting circulated uh on uh

the potential for quote unquote

Democrats signaling their intent to

break a bipartisan trend and shut down

the government with their demands for a

trillion dollars in new spending. Now

they call it a trillion dollars in new

spending here like the White House, but

it's not really a trillion dollars in

new spending. It's like bringing back

spending that was cut in order to fund

the Trump tax plan, the big beautiful

bill. Right? So, Democrats are trying to

get that back. And you could see very

frequently, you're going to see I

highlighted them in green, uh, with the

exception of this one right here. I

guess I can make that one. Uh, there's a

lot of yapping about how Democrats are

to blame here. Look at this. Democrats,

Democrats, Democrats. Uh, and then, you

know, they bury kind of their plans over

here, then Democrats, Democrats. So,

they mentioned Democrats a lot here

because the White House is really trying

to blame this on Democrats, but they're

going to use this as an opportunity. And

this is where the mass layoffs

potentially come from. Here it is.

Programs that did not benefit from an

infusion of mandatory appropriation will

bear the brunt of the shutdown. If the

government shuts down on October 1st,

that shutdown date, the White House is

directing that all agencies, all

agencies are directed with, you know,

respect to applicable laws to consider

reduction in force notices for all

employees in all programs, projects or

activities that satisfy all three of the

following conditions. Discretionary

funding lapses on October 1st. So

basically, if the funding expires via

government shutdown and you do not have

another source of funding and the

projects don't have anything to do with

Donald Trump's specific priorities, we

want you to start furlowing people right

away. Now, this has VA written all over

it. you know, your project 2025 guy,

your project 2025 guy, which, you know,

Donald Trump said he knew nothing about

and there would be no implementation of

project 2025 because he doesn't know

anything about it. Uh, project 2025 has

basically just been a checklist for this

administration so far. We've just been

checking stuff off like it has been just

been playby-play, check, check, check,

check, check. Uh, that's really a topic

for a different video. How much of that

has been checked off, but we we already

know this, so this isn't a surprise. So

what you find here is that while Donald

Trump is trying to blame Democrats, you

have VA who is promising to bring pain

on uh bureaucracy. A lot of people

actually will say, "Hey, this is exactly

what I want. Like I want VA to go in

there and basically, you know, drain the

swamp or or clean house or whatever."

Well, this is bots's opportunity here to

go in and blow up uh with firings the

government in sort of a Doge 2.0. And

Donald Trump is going to brand it as a

Democratic failure. So, Donald Trump

will brand it as Democrats are firing

all these people because they're

shutting down the government. VA's going

to go in and actually slay with the side

and start firing. It's basically like

Trump being able to how he was able to

blame uh uh you know Elon for firings

with Doge. He can now blame Democrats

and he could get this sort of reduction

in government spending which is what

Donald Trump wants. And a lot of people

honestly are like hey like this is what

I want. This is what I voted for. Okay,

whatever. You know, this is this is

everyone's own personal opinion. Oh,

look. A little banner popped up that

says uh there's an expiring coupon code

tonight called Daddy's Back for the

Membership. By the way, like I have to

say we have we are kicking freaking

butt. We have this like um uh analysis

that we're doing now when we do

fundamental analysis. I won't show it

all, but we have in our stock uh like in

our course member app, we have a stock

tab where people could sort by ticker

symbol and look up my fundamental

analysis on individual stocks, get my

opinion on it, my bottom line opinion.

You can also now click on the PDFs to

get my annotated earnings calls and

earnings reports. So you can actually

click on the PDF and have the PDF, the

very PDF that I used to annotate my

fundamental analysis. Uh and and you

could get that like this morning we did,

you know, Costco and we talked about a

lot else in the course member

membership. And so you get that for life

and you could potentially, you know,

write this off on your taxes as well.

But anyway, take a look at this. So

basically Trump is going to fire a bunch

of people. We're going to get these

furlows and take a look at this.

agencies should not repurpose balances

or use transfer authority. So basically

like we don't want you to move money

around. We basically just want you to

cut and if you cut and then after

cutting uh you don't have that that you

know that money is basically just going

to go back to the Treasury Department.

We're we're not going to let you move it

around or repurpose it for something

else. We just want those jobs gone. We

want to shrink the size of government uh

and then obviously provide more tax

benefits to the rich. We remain hopeful

that Democrats in Congress will not

trigger a shutdown. Notice what they've

done here. This is actually very

brilliant framing. In the very first

like four paragraphs, everything they

say is Democrats are to blame, Democrats

are to blame, Democrats are to blame,

Democrats are to blame. Then they go,

"By the way, fire everyone." And then

they end it with Democrats are to blame,

Democrats are to blame. It's kind of

brilliant if you think about it because

the way they're selling this is

Democrats are to blame, but they're

burying, you know, the substance in the

middle by framing it around Democrats

are to blame. And the argument is, hey,

this is a great opportunity to go fire a

lot of people. So, like VA is really

excited about this opportunity. Uh, and

you know, the Washington Post is

reporting on this obviously as well. Uh

this is you know the very real potential

that a lot of federal employees could

lose their jobs uh and that once

government funding is reinstated usually

agencies are able to bring their furled

workers back. But not in this case the

government is literally being directed

to keep only the smallest number of

employees necessary to legally operate.

So this is where a lot of people are

like, "Oh my gosh, that's going to lead

to more weight times with social

security or you know, whatever." Right?

So these these are real issues. Now,

Governor Mr. Thoon is like, "Hey man,

Democrats should just pass a clean

bill." Like why why are we trying to

include all this stuff? Because this is

like Democrats only opportunity here

because this idea that Thoon's like,

"Oh, we should debate Medicaid

separately or Obamacare funding

separately." Cool, bro. Great story.

But, you know, you're never going to

have a separate debate. You know, it's

never going to happen. So, that's why

Democrats right now are like, "Bro,

like, it ain't going to happen unless

you shut it down now." Which increases

the odds of a government shutdown. And

again, my opinion, usually government

shutdowns are a fantastic buying

opportunity. Big fan of the buying

opportunities. The problem with the

buying opportunity is it coincides with

jobs data. October 1st, we get ADP

numbers. Uh and then after October 1st,

what do we get? We get the actual labor

report on the 3, which is scary because,

you know, if now you're going to add on

top of a government shutdown and a lot

more government layoffs, more than the

ones we were already expecting, you're

potentially getting double bad news next

week on jobs. And that's bad news on a

government shutdown leading to

government job losses, but then also

potentially bad news on actual jobs

data. Now, it's unclear what we're going

to get in terms of jobs data. We expect

that it's going to be revised down. It

always is, right? We we get jobs data be

like, "Oh, we got 50,000 job growth."

And then we'll end up getting a bunch of

revisions and then guess what? The job

growth will be a fraction of