SHUTDOWN AVERTED -- ZANDAR FOR THE WIN!

Well, they cut a deal at the eleventh hour. There isn't going to be a shutdown.

And as far back as last November, when Eric Cantor went on Fox News Sunday, days after the midterms, and threatened to shut down the government, Zandar called it:

The people that stand to lose the most here, especially from the threat of a sovereign debt default, are the investor class. They are the ones who spent billions to get the GOP into power, and the threat of default will annihilate the bond market. The big players, especially the hedge fund giants, stand to lose hundreds of billions from a treasury meltdown as interest rates on long bonds skyrocket and yields drop like lead elephants on gravity steroids.

They will not allow the Republicans to toss satchel charges into their cathedral of cash.

... This is not a card Cantor and the Tea Party crazies will ever, ever be allowed to use.

Zandar urged a lot more courage on the Democrats than they actually had -- though, of course, in recent weeks it sure looked as if the Republicans were going to go through with this regardless. More recently, Zandar said there wouldn't be a shutdown because of the fat cats and because Democrats were so willing to make concessions. In any case, he called it, and I have to say I think he's right that this deal was struck not just because Republicans didn't want to look bad to the voters, but because the political system's puppetmasters really, really didn't want it to happen, and let that be known.