Over the last ten years, a number of congress members have been elected on a fairly nihilistic platform, voting against practically any spending bill (unless it buys tanks). This is a good way to get elected but it makes it hard to govern. The government has to spend money. While the Republicans have majorities in both houses, there is a huge difference in political philosophies between members of that party. So the current shutdown was probably inevitable. What does a shutdown entail? Apart from “essential services” (active military, FBI, air traffic controllers etc, and the congressional gym ) federal government functions are frozen, and about 800,000 federal employees will be furloughed. National parks, monuments and the Smithsonian museums in Washington will be closed. Other things that stop are processing of applications for passports and visas, and the maintenance of U.S. government websites. The Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Housing Administration
To be able to trade volatility we need to understand it, particularly the interplay between clustering and mean reversion. Most of the predictability of volatility is due to one of these two features.