The most powerful nation on earth has shut itself down. The Government of the United States will be closed for business (or at least most of its business) until January 3. This is because the legislative arms of government, controlled by fiscally frugal Republicans, cannot agree with the executive arm, controlled by the more spendthrift Democrats headed by President Bill Clinton.
There have been signs of compromise, over payments of welfare to the most needy, but 260,000 federal employees remain on compulsory leave because no Budget law has been passed to pay them.
Despite the huff and puff and the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the sides, they will settle upon a Budget quite soon in the new year. The cost of not doing so will be too great for the party seen at fault. At present, the balance of fault is a fine with Republicans seen increasingly hardline, but with Mr Clinton still seen as not having government spending under control. But that will undoubtedly change one way or the other as the crisis deepens and will result in more give and take. The Republicans will not be able to hack back government spending as quickly or by as much as they imagined a year ago when they captured majorities in both Houses of Congress.
The American system, with its checks and balances between the executive, legislature and judiciary, appears to be having the effect that its Founding Fathers wanted: to make radical, fast change impossible.