I have zero proof that the Koch Brothers are benefiting economically from a government shutdown. But I'm suspicious.
So, the Tea Party has been talking about a government shutdown since 2010, and
proudly talked about how to shut down the government after the 2011 election in a story covered by well-known conspiracy theory news outlet CNN. This shut it down movement seems to be idealogically driven out of the
Tea Party's pure hatred of the US Government.
Yesterday, I read that Standard and Poors said that the current brinksmanship proves that the US is not worthy of a AAA credit rating. Let's set aside whether S&P are the best arbiters of our credit rating; even if they're bad at their job, they're still the ones doing the job and the ones we need to deal with.
In 2011, Eric Cantor was hit by Democrats for making money off the debt ceiling debacle. He was invested in the ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, a bond that basically makes money by betting against US bonds. DailyKos user flounder talked about this in April of 2011. We know that someone is probably making money by having a website that sends faxes to Senators asking them to defund Obamacare.
So, let's ask the question. Who's making money from the government shutdown and from the debt ceiling debacle that's about to come? As a rational progressive, I'm trying my best to believe that this isn't just the Tea Party's death wish, that this just some way for someone to short the market and make money at the expense of anyone else. At least acting like a supervillain requires intelligence. It's possible this is all just stupidity, and that the only money that the Tea Party makes from this is via donations.
But maybe there are other angles to this, like there were in 2011.
Offer your theory, no matter how wild and unsubstantiated at this point, in the comments.