Greetings! 
For the average American who woke up this morning and tuned into CNN, the television network generally accepted as the country's foremost cable news source, seeing a ticking clock on the screen titled "Countdown to Default" might have produced some concern. (Days, hours and...Yes! Minutes too!)
For many others -- those perhaps more susceptible to emotional gimmickry -- this image may have induced outright panic. And with phrases like "Time is Running Out," "Catastrophe Looms Ahead" and "President to Address a Fearful Nation" scrolling across the bottom of the screen, how can you blame them?
Thankfully, if you are reading this newsletter you are not likely a member of either of these groups. Still, I am compelled to offer some perspective, just in case.
In the course of informing their audience, there is a point at which any source of news and information succumbs to the most reliable common denominator, entertainment. This is obviously no secret and there is nothing inherently wrong with it, but it helps to maintain this perspective.
It also helps to carry around with you the belief -- and more importantly, the knowledge -- that while our political system may be dysfunctional and inefficient, capital markets are anything but. Markets respond to political upheaval, and then they correct, adjust, test, and continue this cycle ever onward, no matter the crisis du jour. The antidote, as always, is discipline.
No one is entirely immune from worry, and we are all troubled to some degree by what is going on. The harsh reaction on Wall Street to this fiasco will persist so long as it continues unabated, but we know that for every reaction, there is a counter-reaction. What we don't know, and what we can't predict, is when or how it will abate, and it is precisely because we don't know these things that we rely on discipline in the face of the unknown to guide our investment policy.
Thanks for reading.
Aaron Winer, CRPC
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