The Federal Reserve is likely to postpone any decision on exiting or tapering its quantitative easing program until 2014. Current members of the FOMC are hyper-sensitive to economic data, especially regarding US labor markets. The government shutdown and debt ceiling debate has negatively impacted economic growth as well as made what economic data that is being released suspect in terms of informational value. Our own view is that the events in Washington, DC, will possibly cost the US economy about 1.5% real GDP growth in Q4/2013. Our projections back in the summer of 2013 were for a 2% annualized growth…