Jason Furman, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers has told Wall Street Journal that the current US government shutdown is not like past government shutdowns. He said it's not obvious to us that this time is business as usual. We think that's something that people need to understand and appreciate. The key point revolves around the approach to the US debt ceiling and the possibility of a government default if the ceiling is not raised in time. It is this scenario which makes the current shutdown different, with Furman saying that last time around we actually raised the debt limit, we never defaulted, and that was still bad for the economy just getting up until midnight. It seems that markets is hearing the warnings, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 falling on two consecutive days, including a 0.9% fall on both indexes yesterday. (VIEW LINK)