Debt deal is done. Now what?

Now that there appears to be a tentative deal on increasing the federal government’s debt limit in place, I am going to be an optimist and ‘assume’ this is a done deal.

Why? Well, for one reason, reading about all the partisan bickering and related back-and-forth nature of what led to this point is draining to say the least.

And aside from that, it spells relatively good news for the economic engines that drive our country at a time when we can least afford to lose any signs of momentum whatsoever.

Failing to increase the debt limit, as mentioned in this space, would not only have been bad for the economy, it also would have been bad for supply chain operations.

A negative credit rating not only would significantly impact consumer patterns, it could have potentially wreaked havoc on inventory management and demand planning processes for both shippers and carriers.

At any conference you attend these days, you usually cannot go five minutes without hearing the word visibility and how important it is to have in when approaching the myriad facets of supply chain management.

What’s more, failure to agree on increasing the debt limit in any way could have set us back to 2008, when Wall Street crashed and put us in an untenable situation entirely.

Things are not as bad now, but, by no means, are they all that great or even that much better. But you don’t need me to tell you that.

Another thing failure to agree on increasing the debt limit would do is to negatively impact the already limited amount of credit available to do things like reinvest in businesses so carriers can by more trucks, rail cars, and containers, and shippers can increase warehouse space, and add personnel, and also allow both sides to grow through expansion and acquisition at a more fervent pace.

I am trying not to get too far ahead of my self, but these days good news—or even a good sign of economic positivity—can be hard to come by. So I will take last night’s news as a good sign….for now.