See related market for context:
https://manifold.markets/LarsDoucet/will-president-biden-mint-the-coin
This market resolves N/A if there is never an actual credible threat of a government shutdown during the Biden administration.
If there is, and president Biden orders the mint to strike one or more platinum coins of collective denominations high enough to evade the budgetary issues, this market immediately resolves YES as soon as the coin(s) exist(s).
Should the threat arise and should Biden "mint the coin," this market resolves YES regardless of whether he does so in time to actually avert a government shutdown or not.
Should the threat arise and should Biden NOT "mint the coin", this market resolves NO if the government shuts down for any amount of time.
Should the threat arise and should Biden NOT "mint the coin", and a government shutdown is averted through any other means, this market resolves N/A.
EDIT:
I will say the current situation as of May 2023 qualifies, in my opinion, as "credible threat." McCarthy is making threats, and although it's not guaranteed he will follow through on them, they seem serious, lots of smart people I know are taking them seriously, I believe he's capable of doing it, and Republicans have shut down the government before. This is not the same as an "imminent shutdown" or even a "likely shutdown." For what it's worth, I don't have a personal stake in this market.
Close date updated to 2027-01-31 11:59 pm
Related questions
@JPAddison I will say for the record that in my opinion, the current situation qualifies:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/09/politics/mccarthy-biden-showdown-national-debt/index.html
@LarsDoucet I agree the current situation certainly counts as a threat of default. However, default and government shutdown are different things, as noted in the previous comments. Is there a specific threat of government shutdown?
@jack At least one Republican is on record saying Kevin McCarthy must commit to "shut down the government rather than raise the debt ceiling" and that that is "a non-negotiable item"
https://theintercept.com/2023/01/04/kevin-mccarthy-government-shutdown-debt-ceiling/
@jack I don't really see why the question is about a government shutdown when there's a much clearer threat of default. I suspect most people are just confusing the two, probably including the person in that link - their response to the question about default vs government shutdown didn't really answer it.
@jack The market doesn't say it has to come from McCarthy, just that there is a credible threat of a government shutdown.
As for "who isn't in charge" -- the Freedom caucus forced a bunch of concessions out of McCarthy at the beginning of the year, effectively giving them a lot of power over him. (https://rollcall.com/2023/01/09/mccarthy-concessions-raise-stakes-on-budget-debt-limit/)
In retrospect it would have been smarter than me to make this about default rather than shutdown, but it's too late to edit the terms of the market now.
For what it's worth I'm convinced there's a credible threat of government shutdown on the table as that's happened multiple times in the past, it's been alluded to constantly in the media, and Democrats are certainly receiving McCarthy's negotiation stance as a threat of shutdown:
https://rollcall.com/2023/01/09/mccarthy-concessions-raise-stakes-on-budget-debt-limit/
"House Appropriations' top Democrat, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, warned in a statement that capping spending at fiscal 2022 levels “kills the 2024 government funding process before it has even started, all but guaranteeing a shutdown.” "
The main thing ruling on this conditional would do is flip the stakes of NOT minting the coin from N/A resolution to NO. If there's sufficient controversy I'll leave that an open question for now until we see how this plays out, but as it stands I don't think it's particularly ambiguous, and the market never said McCarthy himself has to make the threat, just that there has to be a threat.
@jack perhaps the question should be rephrased to threat of default or government shutdown? Was anyone here making bets that depended on that distinction? (I wasn't)
@jack You know @ManifoldMarkets it'd be nice to have a "poll all the betters if a clarifying move is going to piss anyone off" feature would be nice.
In general I've found if I try to make even subtle changes like this to the substantive text/title of the market after the fact, even for what seem like reasonable or justified reasons, people inevitably get mad at me
@LarsDoucet Yeah, I agree there's a credible threat of a government shutdown (and your market specifically says during the Biden administration; it doesn't have to be an imminent threat - so threat of shutdown later qualifies). So I don't have a problem with saying that the conditional is satisfied.
@jack Cool -- but don't be afraid to say otherwise on any of my markets! I want to make sure I'm being fair. Same goes for anyone else here reading this.
Manifold in the wild: A Tweet by Nathan is in SF (say hi 👋)
@TheStalwart The market says pretty unlikely https://manifold.markets/LarsDoucet/conditional-on-the-threat-of-a-gove
How would minting a coin help to prevent a government shutdown? A government shutdown is when there is no budget passed so money cannot be spent independently of any additional (book) income from the coin.
The idea of 'minting the coin' relates to the debt ceiling not being increased. (Government being funded, but not being able to spend money as they don't have enough and can't incur any new debts, hence the coin.)
@amoebus https://theintercept.com/2023/01/04/kevin-mccarthy-government-shutdown-debt-ceiling/
Threatening a government shutdown is a specific tactic that is used to prevent the debt ceiling being raised