This will be absolutely devastating. Even though we know these draconian cuts will not heal the economy but will actually make things worse (all you have to do is look at the results from similar measures in the UK and Europe), you have to wonder about our so-called leaders and their fervent faith in the same economic voodoo that has never worked to date.
Because with the same cast of characters, I think we can assume the same kind of outcome. At most, I expect the closing of some small tax loopholes that will count as "revenue" -- and the rest will be taken out of the hides of the most vulnerable.
Moral of the tale: When a corrupt rating agency says, "Gee, I notice you haven't cut your safety net programs for the elderly and poor all that much," the craven politicians respond, "How much would you like me to cut, sir?"
WASHINGTON — The downgrade of the United States government’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s is almost sure to increase pressure on a new Congressional “supercommittee” to mute ideological disagreements and recommend a package of deficit-reduction measures far exceeding its original goal of at least $1.5 trillion, lawmakers said Sunday.
Even before the panel is appointed, its mission is expanding. Its role is not just to cut the annual budget deficit and slow the explosive growth of federal debt but also to appease the markets and help restore the United States’ top credit rating of AAA. Otherwise, taxpayers may eventually have to pay more in interest for every dollar borrowed by the Treasury.
The report certainly got the attention of Capitol Hill. “I think this is one of the most telling, important moments in our country’s history right now,” Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Sunday on the NBC program “Meet the Press.” He added: “This poses a set of choices not just about a recession. It’s about a financial crisis and the structure of our economy, which really has been misallocating capital.”
In the S.&P. report on Friday outlining the reasons for removing long-term Treasury debt from its list of nearly risk-free investments, the company cited doubts about the ability of the two political parties to bridge their gulf on fiscal policy.
Credit rating agencies have thus emerged as a powerful constituency whose concerns are taken seriously by Congress.
[...] S.&P. did not advocate a specific mix of increased revenue and spending cuts. But it did say that overhauling entitlement programs was “key to long-term fiscal sustainability” and that the debt deal “envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare.”
Oh, if only we had real leaders in our political establishment. And if pigs had wings, they could fly.
Like the debt ceiling created pressure.
Nonsense. It's just the latest in manufactured crises.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Yep. Crisis capitalism. If it works, why stop doing it. Way easier than troops on the ground, and the result is the same - the ownership of the USA - In this case by a handful of power elites. Like taking candy from a baby...
And conservatives? Well, they'll never learn - that's what makes them conservatives in the first place. The first step to learning anything, in getting past denial.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
the "crisis" part is redundant in a system which is based entirely on the concept of artificial scarcity.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
the teabaggers have taken over s&p
why else would they insist that SS, medicare
and medicaid be reformed or have severe cuts?
fuck this phony gop organization and shit-eaters
of the koch brothers.
... the really rich will just go live somewhere else.
CaliforniaMike blogs at All Voices and at his own blogs, http://www.mikerappaport.net/onevoice and at http://oneminutewithmike.blogspot.com.
So now S&P dictates policy...
grover gets to do it. sara mcGimmedat gets to do it. sean hannity and billy o'reily get to do it.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Gee.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
and those that serve on it.
And fuck those criminals alleging to do business as Standard & Poor's. Why wasn't their board on trial starting last year? Criminals don't thank you for letting them off; they just try to kill you again.
me-oww!
because, that is what it will be.
Why does our Congress, Executive and Supreme Court hate Democracy?
It's that pesky "checks and balances" thing.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
.. and we know whose balances they go to ..
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
The market was tanking before the downgrade, and since the downgrade investors are moving their money in to Treasuries, not out. There are no silly facts that can withstand, alter, or influence, the medias chosen narrative. None.
Traders have been depositing their money in the banks at such a rapid rate the banks decided to herd them into Treasuries by imposing a fee just to deposit money in the bank. The banks were sh**ing bricks over it and you can bet the FED was encouraging the fees because they want them in Treasuries. People are not depositing their money in T-Bills because they feel good about them, they simply are avoiding being penalized. If they thought T-Bills were all that and a bag of chips, Gold would have tanked today but instead it's well over $1700 an ounce.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
I predict we the working class will be screwed big time by the Senate members of the Supercommittee
He said that if it were not for the TeaBaggers, we could have had $4 trillion in cuts, across the board, to SS, Medicare, etc., with some tax raises too.
Thanks Sen. Kerry, you centrist, elite and rich shithead. I will be forever embarassed by my past votes for you and The Obomber. Join the Rethugs, will ya', because, you are one.
What the left fails again and again to realize is we stopped a market correction in 2008. Market corrections are called corrections for a reason, they help to correct over inflated markets. Corrections are a natural and necessary mechanism which helps correct imbalances in free markets. You don’t stop corrections from happening any more than you would stop an exhausted person from resting.
Three years and trillions of bull sh** misallocated stimulus has left our economy stuck in stagflation with the FED holding up zombie banks stuck in a liquidity trap, just like a very small few of us said so back then. But what did we know?! O_o. As a result the market is littered with companies that have inflated P/E ratios and dividends groveling around all-time lows when it should be the other way around.
No one in their right mind is going to invest in an asset which cannot be properly valuated. Until that happens you can kiss acquisitions and thus hiring good-bye. No meaningful hiring will occur until these over inflated turds drop to their proper prices. We need a bear market to clean out the cat turds from the litter box.
You want hiring? You want jobs? Let the incompetent fail like they should have back 2008, let smart money come in and buy the properly valuated assets and then you will see real growth. The idiots in Washington thought they were preventing a depression, no they damn well created it, had we been allowed to fail in 2008 you would have a recovery now.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
I love the part where libertarians have a 0.0000 batting average and keep talking like they have a reserved spot in the baseball hall of fame. Your randian fan club is responsible for the majority of this mess. Want to talk responsibilities? Look yourselves in the mirror first...
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
The government shouldn't have bailed out the banks, we shouldn't have allowed the banks to transfer their costs onto the public. It is immoral and horrible economic policy. This has been happening for decades though Vegas. The Mexican Peso Crisis, East Asia, Long Term Capital Management, the Latin American debt crisis and the socialization of financial capital's losses after the crash in 2007, all basically the same thing. We should have just had the government step in and provide finance as a public utility. The private banking and financial interests are horribly inefficient and destructive. They act in their own individual interest but collectively are irrational and destructive.
"Three years and trillions of bull sh** misallocated stimulus has left our economy stuck in stagflation with the FED holding up zombie banks"
That isn't stimulus guy. That certainly isn't Keynesian or socialist. It is throwing more money at banks and socializing their losses, begging them to lend to the real economy when demand is horribly low. Stimulus is a public works project, it is spending on the real economy. The real economy of production. The government's policy has basically been to not allow the bankers to lose their asses. If it means we allow them to transfer their crap financial products onto the public or to bail out international interests (like we did with QE2) then so be it. The government has abandoned the real economy and workers. It isn't stimulus.
"Let the incompetent fail like they should have back 2008, let smart money come in and buy the properly valuated assets and then you will see real growth."
Genius. We already have a banking and financial system dominated by a relatively small group of investors, group and companies. Let's basically solve the problem by consolidating that wealth and power even more. That's always a good idea, especially for a libertarian. Cause we could have a "free market" when the market is as concentrated as this:
http://monthlyreview.org/2010/02/01/the-age-o...
"In 1990 the ten largest financial institutions in the United States accounted for 10 percent of total U.S. financial industry assets. In 2008 this rose to over 60 percent. The same phenomenon is true globally with the ten largest banks in 2009 accounting for 70 percent of global banking assets, compared with 59 percent in 2006...Fully 80 percent of the total rise in profits in the United States in the third quarter of 2009 was accounted for by the financial sector (which represents only a quarter of the economy)."
You work in finance obviously, so it is beyond you to consider that maybe finance has to shrink relative to the real economy. It has to though. We shouldn't have an economy so dependent on finance, an industry that doesn't produce anything tangible. An economy dominated by rentier interests who make money on debt. Not sustainable. If any painful transition is coming it is the end of an economy dominated as much as it is by finance.
Unrest in Israel, Egypt, Chile, amongst other places (all thanks in large part to neo-liberal economic policies) riots in the UK, economic collapse in Europe. The lower individual and corporate tax, more trade and financial liberalization, privatization model sure has worked out well hasn't it?
there is too much regulation still. Duh.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Reform Social Security !!
Eliminate the Cap !!
Every dollar "earned" in excess of $106,800 should contribute as much as every dollar less than $106,800.
Reform Medicaid and MediCare !!
Half of US medical costs are paid by the US government.
US medical costs are twice as high as any other developed nation (with inferior outcomes as well).
We MUST eliminate for-profit health care in the US !!
That's how we should "reform entitlements"!
And EVERY progressive should be saying it OVER and OVER and OVER.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
These agencies need to be thoroughly investigated for their roles in the run up to the 2008 financial collapse. They appear to have had a very major role in the whole credit default swap swindle that ended up requiring a bailout.
I know it won't ever happen, or if it does it'll just be a big show. Goldman Sachs, B of A, S&P, Moodys, AIG, et al, all appear to have gotten away with the crime of the century.
Once again, the common person and the common good, gets fucked.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
The problem with this, is that U.S. Treasury Bonds are going up. Why? Here is one answer posted by Mets 102 from Daily Kos.
One can read the full post here.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/08/1004...
Market Humiliates S&P-Rejects Downgrade.
Financial matters are complex and rarely straight forward. Will this be used for more cuts? Of course! Should this be allowed to happen? Of course not!
I sure would not put it into a bank.
That same corrupt agency said, "Gee, I notice you haven't raised your taxes in years". And the Republicans said, "Fuck YOU."
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
that Kerry works for the people and not the corporate overlords?
John Kerry is one of the worst and yet he's treated as an elder statesmen in the Demo. party.
Anyone who defends Kerry, seriously doesn't have a clue.
Wanna save scores of billions you can use for the social safety net? There you go. Scores and scores of billions in cuts to be made...if progressives have the nerve.
IF.
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