http://news.yahoo.com/p-reconsiderin...001207261.html
Nice going, Congress. Good fucking job.
http://news.yahoo.com/p-reconsiderin...001207261.html
Nice going, Congress. Good fucking job.





Was there ever actually going to be another outcome with the same politicians that got us in trouble, pledging to get us out?
Term Limits.
Just say no to professional politicians.
I agree with you about term limits. I think everyone should get one term, period. Then they actually have to do what they were fucking elected to do, instead of spending their whole term campaigning for their NEXT one.





commentary about this just posted in the Dollar Den. Stand by for US interest rates to increase across the board.
^ No joke. This is going to be my generation that's going to be cleaning up this mess for a long time. I'm so fucking pissed about this I'm seeing red.





Actually this is the Bill from previous Generations. One Congress after another has been kicking the can down the road.
If the reforms do not take affect in the same year, they are not going to happen.
The pledge that this will reduce the deficit in ten years is pure deceit. Budgets are approved yearly.
This is not an OMG moment. This is not all the money spent in the Bush or the Obama presidencies. This is about spending all the surpluses and reducing the savings.
Social Security and All Pensions should be Irreducible funds in perpetuity. Had Congress not taken all of the Interest and portions of the Capital the SSA fund would have diminished poverty as it was intended to.



NO WAY does the U.S. not pay it's creditors..... What a bunch of tools at S&P
Last edited by mikef; 08-07-2011 at 08:10 PM. Reason: Added S&P.... so no one would think I was insulting posters




this downgrade was coming no matter what congress did with the deficit ceiling.
I also dont think a 1 term, term limit would do anything. just think...if they know they cant be re-elected, they will do whatever they feel like, knowing no consequences will happen. I might not like them being beholden to morons who vote for things like the tea party, but, i'll still take that over them just doing whatever they want for one term and then saying "bye bye, fuck you."



I used to think term limits was the answer...... Then I see what happened to California..... It hasn't helped them much I think.
Wow still can't believe this, wonder what's in store for the US next.
We have no one to blame but ourselves. We elect the people that did this, and does it surprise anyone that this happens? As a nation, we live this way ourselves.
We all want expensive stuff but we can't all afford it, so we charge it. Then, we can't pay for it, so bankruptcy cases go up and up...people default on their debts...personal savings rates are in the shitter...does it really surprise anyone that our national debt and deficit spending is a problem? HALF OF AMERICA DOES IT ON A PERSONAL BASIS.
And getting back to electing these people...again, is it a surprise? How well would this election speech go over?
"My fellow citizens, I pledge to raise taxes and cut Social Security, Medicare, and Defense Spending! I won't bring that pork barrel project to my congressional district! I know my opponent has pledged to lower taxes and give you free stuff, but I won't do that!"
We all SAY we want more responsible government, but we elect the guy that says he'll bring home the bacon to his district. We all say we want bipartisanship, but we elect Tea Party doofuses and Nancy Pelosi. If a candidate came out and advocated responsible governance....cutting spending, raising taxes reasonably, and paying down our debt...he can't get elected.
Our government is a reflection of ourselves. Not all of us, but collectively, it is.





Not entirely, but it is OUR generation that better wake the fuck up about what's going on and start doing something about it instead of still relying on our parents and going on our merry "I don't give a fuck, it's not my problem" way.
It has nothing to do with that. After the clown show that was congress trying to raise the debt ceiling did anyone expect anything else? It didn't exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence in our ability to handle anything or get anything done. Not to mention that what congress did do isn't half of what it should have done, and then hey, they all went on vacation. Good job guys! However, it's still complete bull shit. These are the same people that rated everything right before the bottom fell out of the economy and housing markets. The U.S could have (and honestly had business to) prosecuted people and put them in jail over that and instead we looked the other way, and that's how they thank us? Really? The whole system is fucked. All that happened this time is that it was put on display for the world to see.
Sorry I missed church. I was too busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.
"If you're good at something, never do it for free." The Dark Knight
"you conjunctively engender an intoxicating combination of wicked, wholesome & insanely intelligent" - a friend describing me
Blessed Be



S&P said..... "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics,"
The United States will ALWAY PAY it's creditors.... That is not debatable.
Now you can argue with the value of the money in the future..... And whose fault it is that Washington is crazy..... But for S&P to suggest that the U.S. could default is wrong.... And they are tools.





^ I'm well aware of what they said. I'm also well aware of the warning that went out to us in advance.
Just a few weeks ago:
"We may lower the long-term rating on the U.S. by one or more notches into the 'AA' category in the next three months, if we conclude that Congress and the Administration have not achieved a credible solution to the rising U.S. government debt burden and are not likely to achieve one in the foreseeable future."
Besides, you're so confident in our ability to pay our creditors when we just came so close to defaulting it isn't even funny huh? How are those rose coloured glasses?
Sorry I missed church. I was too busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.
"If you're good at something, never do it for free." The Dark Knight
"you conjunctively engender an intoxicating combination of wicked, wholesome & insanely intelligent" - a friend describing me
Blessed Be








So there is speculation that it was George Soros manipulating the markets through the media.
Someone invested a Billion dollars that the US credit rating would drop, and shorted on the Dollar.
Unless we pull our head out of our collective ass, a slow, steady decline in the world standings/influence/power, accompanied by a corresponding decline in standard of living. This decline may be punctuated with occasional sharp declines related to either economic recessions, wars, and natural disasters.
How do we reverse this? I am not 100% sure....much of what is happening with the US has as much to do with a win/loss global economic arrangement (where, say, China wins, we lose) than anything else. That said....
1-We need to address the "underculture" of the US. The part of our society that shuns education; drops out of high school; gets pregnant in their teens (or gets someone pregnant); has multiple children by multiple fathers and without marriage; exists by "getting by" on government handouts and mooching off of relatives and friends; that shuns work; and that exists in, and seems ok with, being dumb and poor. How to do this, I don't know...this is a huge question....but this segment of the populace is a major drag on the country.
We have to get these people educated and make them realize what an advantage it is to have knowledge and the ability to think critically. This is a MUST.
2-We have got to get off of the PC kick. This is a major distraction and dividing issue. When we spend as much time in our schools dealing with diversity education as we do teaching math and reading, that's a problem. We only have so much time to educate people, and using it to address things that won't make us competitive in the world is silly. I am willing to bet that Chinese students aren't required to learn holocaust history, Native-American history, write essays that must include multicultural figures, and use textbooks that have been vetted by a diversity committee.
There are other PC issues other than education that we need to deal with, but PC as a whole is not helping this nation, it's dividing it.
3-We have got to get our national financial situation under control. We are a nation of borrowers and spenders. We need to save more, and we don't. This goes all the way from the Average Joe up to the federal government. We can't and shouldn't expect the government to take care of from cradle to grave...at the least, we just can't afford to do this, as we're seeing right now.
4-We also have to deal with the inequality issue. I think it feeds #3. When 1% of the populace controls 50% of the wealth, that is not healthy for a society. How to deal with this, I honestly don't know, but it will eventually result in major society upheaval.
5-We need to put together a smart immigration policy....one that encourages EDUCATED immigrants that will be able to contribute.
Of all of these, I think education and the underclass are the two biggest issues. Pulling those people out of cultures where single parenthood is the norm, and dropping out of high school is not seen as bad, etc...and getting them better educated and thinking of the future...that's what we need to get toward.
As JFK, said...ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
There are simply too many people that have the opposite mindset right now.





Sorry I missed church. I was too busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.
"If you're good at something, never do it for free." The Dark Knight
"you conjunctively engender an intoxicating combination of wicked, wholesome & insanely intelligent" - a friend describing me
Blessed Be
Our grandparents and their grandparents have been hearing the deficit mantra for generations. The truth is no one has and no one will ever be affected by the deficit in any measurable way, the U.S. economy simply cannot be compared to a household economy in any meaningful way. It's a completely made up boogeyman and this was a completely made up crisis, worrying about the deficit with a down economy is like worrying about water damage in the middle of a fire. The biggest difference between the surplus Clinton left us and trillion dollar per year deficits we are racking up now are two unpaid wars, Bush's tax cuts and rising out of control health care costs, one party left the country with extra money and has been trying to fix the main problems and the other is standing firmly in their way.
"Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: 'A horrible person.' We weren't even testing for that."
I agree that right now is not the time to try to reduce the deficit...I mean, right now as in immediately...but deficit spending and the national debt is a MAJOR issue that must be dealt with. We are living beyond our means and unless we rein that in over the long term, we'll be in serious trouble.
I will agree with you that the Tea Party retards are the reason that this downgrade occurred. This crap about holding the country hostage over the budget was sheer stupidity. You pass the debt ceiling increase and deal with the budget when the budget is meant to be dealt with.
But the bigger picture here is that our government is broken. When we can't do something as simple as agree to pay our bills in a timely fashion, then we're in a bad state.





This was not about raising the debt ceiling per se. The ratings agencies got themselves in a bind by saying they wanted a $4 trillion deal. What they got was a roughly $2 trillion deal. Now the agencies are on record as saying only $4 trillion is acceptable. What do they do? Well, to maintain a shred of what little credibility they have left, they downgrade from AAA to AA+. Does the downgrade mean anything? Not really. Investors are flocking to treasuries, not because of their rating, but because the rest of the world is so unsafe.
HTH
Z



I addressed this already.... Reading comprehension is important to avoid talking at angles.
Now you can argue with the value of the money in the future..... And whose fault it is that Washington is crazy..... But for S&P to suggest that the U.S. could default is wrong.... And they are tools.



Are you serious? the Tea Party manufactured the problem out of thin air, if we had just raised the debt ceiling like usual we wouldn't have had a downgrade. We got downgraded because they don't feel raising the debt ceiling is going to be a given from now on, who's fault is that?
"Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: 'A horrible person.' We weren't even testing for that."
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