🛑 Gov’t shutdown jitters

…and Reddit pays users who have good karma   A House divided (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)   [Sponsored by]( Yesterday’s Market Moves   Dow Jones 33,550 (-0.20%) S&P 500 4,275 (+0.02%) Nasdaq 13,093 (+0.22%) Bitcoin $26,265 (+0.22%) Dow Jones 33,550 (-0.20%) S&P 500 4,275 (+0.02%) Nasdaq 13,093 (+0.22%) Bitcoin $26,265 (+0.22%) Hey Snackers, NYC’s hottest dining spot: a fake steakhouse run by 21-year-old tech workers with no cooking qualifications. [Mehran’s Steak House]( opened for one night only as an elaborate bit, serving four-course, bovine-themed meals paired with wine or milk. It’s giving [The Shed](. Stocks were roughly flat yesterday, and have fallen since last week, when the Fed suggested that rates could stay higher for longer. Investors are feeling uncomfy about a potential gov’t shutdown, spiking oil prices, strikes, and soon-to-resume student-loan payments. Crisis The Senate scrambles to avoid a gov’t shutdown, which could leave millions without pay 11th-hour theatrics… American leaders still can’t agree on how to spend Uncle Sam’s cash. The country is three days from a federal government shutdown. On Tuesday, the Senate [reached]( a bipartisan spending agreement aiming to avoid a shutdown. The stopgap bill would keep the gov’t funded till November 17, and includes $6.2B in aid to Ukraine, plus $6B for natural-disaster relief. - Don’t break out the Martinelli’s: The chamber still has to greenlight the bill before it can be sent to the House, where stark disagreements among Republicans cloud its chances of getting passed. - Refresher: Federal shutdowns happen when Congress can’t agree to pass funding legislation signed by POTUS. The House and Senate need to pass 12 spending bills to fund federal agencies — or pass a temporary extension. The course of true law… never did run smooth. If Congress can’t agree by Sunday, thousands of federal workers and 1.3M active-duty military members could be left without paychecks. Some workers would be furloughed, while essential personnel like military, law enforcement, firefighters, and TSA would be required to work without pay. Agencies like the FDA and OSHA may have to limit operations, and thousands of kids could lose access to care programs. - All’s not lost: Most gov’t operations would be business as usual, since only about a quarter of federal spending is “discretionary” (the portion that requires annual approval by Congress). - Safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security payments wouldn’t be affected. Neither would the Postal Service, which runs on its own $$. THE TAKEAWAY Disagreement breeds distrust… And the US gov’t has been far from united. This shutdown situation is giving folks flashbacks to the debt-ceiling crisis in May, which got resolved last minute. Because of that hot mess, the US got its first downgrade from a major credit-rating agency (Fitch) in more than a decade. This week, rating agency [Moody's]( warned that a shutdown would hurt the US’s credit. Sponsored by Masterworks This asset class’s prices outpaced the S&P 500 by 136% (Now you can access it) It's true. Over the last 27 years, contemporary art* had 136% higher price appreciation than stocks. But you’re probably wondering: how is the average person supposed to access an asset class that has been the exclusive domain of the ultra-rich for centuries? The answer is Masterworks, an award-winning platform for investing in shares of multi-million dollar art. It’s amassed a nearly $1 billion collection including works from greats like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso. Over 800,000 people have already signed up. Best of all, Snacks readers can skip the waitlist to join [with this exclusive link.]( r/monetization Reddit starts paying creators for posts as social-media platforms incentivize content Golden upvote… Reddit is rolling out a program that [pays users]( for popular posts. Meet Reddit Gold: a currency users can buy for $2 apiece to award their favorite OPs (original posters). Redditors will soon have the option to “golden-upvote” posts to select how much coin they want to give. In July, Reddit phased out an earlier version of Gold that couldn't be cashed out. - Karma is your bf: To cash out gold for real moolah, posters need 100+ karma/year (Reddit awards karma to people who actively post and comment), and gold is worth more for creators with 5K+ karma. AITA for lurking… Social-media platforms are encouraging users to post, not just scroll, by introducing ways to earn $$. TikTok has a suite of monetization opportunities, including live-streaming “gifts” and special pay-to-access posts. X (fka Twitter) introduced revenue sharing in July, allowing top users to earn a slice of revenue from ads that appear in replies to their posts. Reddit’s reportedly planning to IPO this year, at which point its S-1 filing would disclose its financials and user metrics to the world. THE TAKEAWAY Incentives shape the platform… TikTok influencer Pinkydoll probably wouldn’t say “ice cream so good” a hundred times if she weren’t making $7K/day from users sending her cash gifts in the form of ice-cream icons. Meanwhile, X’s revenue-sharing program has been criticized for encouraging users to create controversial, click-baity content. Some Reddit users are concerned that the new monetization model could mean fewer selfless anons posting cat jokes and more trolls riling users up with “engagement bait.” What else we're Snackin' - [Snag]( [Target]( plans to close nine stores in cities including NYC, Seattle, and San Francisco, blaming rising theft and threats to employees’ safety. It also backed a bill that would allow harsher penalties for retail crime. - [Bars]( The FCC wants to bring back net-neutrality rules for the first time since 2017. If the regulations pass, internet providers like [Verizon]( and [AT&T]( could be barred from charging more for faster internet. - [Vegas]( Nevada’s 60K-member Culinary Union voted to authorize a hospitality-worker strike against hotels including [Caesars]( and [MGM](. They could join striking LA hotel workers who were picketing this month. - [Pass]( A bipartisan group of senators approved a marijuana financing bill that would allow weed vendors to open bank accounts and get small-biz loans. It’s the first time that such a bill has made it to Congress. - [CryptNo]( [JPMorgan]( Chase Bank told its UK customers that it’ll block crypto-related transactions starting October 16, citing crypto scams. As of June, crypto-crime transactions were down 65% on the year. 🍪 Thanks for Snacking with us! Want to share the Snacks? Invite your friends to sign up [here](. Snack Fact Of the Day Florida has surpassed New York as the US’s second-largest housing market [Read more]( Thursday - Fed Chair Powell speaks - Earnings expected from Nike, CarMax, and Accenture *Advertiser’s disclosure: Contemporary art is measured by the Repeat-Sale Pair Index of Post-War and Contemporary Art and All Art (as defined by the applicable auction house) using Standard & Poor's CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices Methodology, inclusive of all applicable public auction sales with last sale occurring at Christie's, Sotheby's, or Phillips. Performance of exited investments is not representative of artwork that has not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd. 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