Sacramento News & Review, October 17 – A growing body of 21st-century philsophical thought recognizes that the 98 episodes of Gilligan’s Island ask and answer all the Big Questions.

So, amid this recent flurry of mouth-frothing and hand-wringing over debt, it should be no surprise The Skipper and Mary Ann slice straight to the bottom line.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Do not forget: Stay out of debt!” sings The Skipper’s Polonius to Mary Ann’s gender-bending Laertes in the castaways’ musical version of Hamlet.

Whenever there is a deadline in Congress, short-term considerations generally gain more importance than long term goals. Politicians have a tendency to focus on fixing whatever is broken through a piecemeal and temporary approach rather than taking a look at how the quick fixes will affect generations to come.

If the media coverage of shutdown politics is to be believed, House Republicans' fear of 'getting primaried' by a more conservative opponent was a major impediment to moderate GOP-ers reaching a bargain with Democrats on healthcare and federal spending.

In general, Stratfor deals with U.S. domestic politics only to the extent that it affects international affairs. Certainly, this topic has been argued and analyzed extensively.

California is a unique place. Just ask anyone who's ever lived there.

So naturally the state boasts a unique system for nominating its elected officials as well and the road to the system that's currently in place in California was a bumpy one. But, as with many things, whether or not the change produces the desired result remains to be seen.

Deficits Are A First-Order Problem

[On Tuesday], Former Treasury Secretary and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers argued that “budget deficits are now a second-order problem” and the focus should instead be on economic growth.

Good job Congress. After two weeks of anxiety about the future of our economy, two weeks without national parks, two weeks of furloughed federal employees, two weeks of confusion over social security checks, Veteran services, essential vs. non-essential federal employees, and two weeks of deteriorating Congressional approval ratings, a deal has been reached.