[CNBC] S&P contacts White House to notify about a downgrade coming

His cronies speak the truth, you should try that some time.

DD

 

While it galls me to say it, at least lil'texxx is an improvement over basso.

 

Has anyone met bigtexxx or basso in real life? are they as irritating as in D&D?

 

Yes of course. And Reagan inherited Jimmy Carter's mess. Bush Sr inherited Reagan's mess. Bush Jr inherited Clinton's mess. Somebody is always cleaning up somebody else's mess. When is Obama gonna start blaming the mess and start governing? I thought that was his job.

Of course, I don't see how his health care plan (which does add to spending) helps the mess. Where does Bush's mess end and his begins?

 

Apparently, the American people are not done blaming the mess on Bush Jr. yet. In the most recent poll, 44% blame Bush for the deficit situation, 15% blame Obama.

Of course, now they are beginning to figure out that much of the problem is the the Tea Party's mess: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/05/288867/congressional-approval-sinks-to-all-time-low/

 

"His cronies" <> "him". Try again.

 

China bound itself into a straitjacket of us dollars and undervalued yuan.

Good luck getting out of it China.

 

wrong

 

I haven't, but some here have met Trader_Jorge, lil'texxx's twin brother, and say he is a very nice guy in person. There were some photos of him (Trader_Jorge) posted in Hangout, taken at a ClutchFans get together, that could probably be located with a search. People who met him were very complimentary of Trader_J. Saying they were a bit surprised by that wouldn't be an exaggeration. Of 'texxx, I know only what I've read posted on the BBS, and I would say the same about nearly everyone here. Of his opinions, assuming that posting them isn't a prank, I know a great deal.

 

Also apparently, the American people are never at fault. For example, if you believe Gallop (yes I know this is several months old), 91% of Americans believe that the debt situation is a threat to the long term economic growth/health of the country. An additional 65% or so (I might be a bit off on that one, check) believe in a balanced budget through spending cuts but would just like Congress to minimize the pain.

And by minimizing the pain, they want Congress to leave their SS and Healthcare alone. They would like to see defense being continually funded (like I said, this was before the current debacle when it became clear they have to pick and choose). They don't want to cut education. They would continue environmental initiatives (I agree). They want to build up their decaying infrastructure.

So help me out here, where are the cuts?

Aside from somebody's always cleaning up somebody else's mess, the far more consistent occurrence is that somebody is always blaming somebody else. You didn't show me anything to the contrary.

 

Interesting. So you believe Gene Sperling is the same person as Barack Obama and they mutate into each other at will? Fascinating insight into the level of delusion you suffer from.

 

This is all the Tea Party. S&P quoted 3 times as saying one of the reasons for the downgrade was a failure to raise revenue and the belief that step could not be taken.


Thank you idiot Tea Party for making us all pay more in taxes basically with a higher interest rate and tanking the world economy.

How on earth did these fool get allowed to do so much damage? The only Tea Party we need is to throw these fools off a boat and send them packing to get out of washington for good.

 

Stock futures are way down, but I think it's more due to Italy's continuing explosion. Though the downgrade certainly doesn't help.

 

Yes, the downgrade doesn't help. I'm sitting on some cash myself that I had intended to add to my portfolio, but instead, I'm sitting back, observing, planning to have a chat with my broker, and waiting... waiting to see where the bottom is based on the best available information at my disposal. Then I'll buy.

 

It seems like Italy fixed itself with one fell swoop. They didn't really have any deficit problems - their economy is reasonable and their budget wasn't that far out of balance to start with - they had planned to have a balanced budget by 2014. They just had a big underlying debt that they have to keep refinancing. So between their balanced budget agreement to push that up to 2013 and the ECB willing to scoop up their bonds now, it seems Italy fixes itself pretty easily, no? On the surface, they seem far less of a problem than all the other European problem countries.

I suspect this futures drop is primarily all about the initial reaction to the downgrade. Hopefully it's just a quick panic and then everyone just calms down.

 

I would definitely sit on cash for a while. It could get ugly.

 

I think the ECB buying bonds will help. But the problem is more that Italy is stuck with the Euro and the fear that this could spread to Spain, a bigger economy.

Krugman has a good post on Italy today.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/a-self-fulfilling-euro-crisis-wonkish/

 

Obama signed the debt deal into law last week after the House and Senate approved it. How can his supporters or him say that the repercussions from that bill are solely the Tea Party's fault? The Democrats controlled the Executive Branch, House and Senate for two years (09-10) and racked up $3 trillion+ in deficits (almost $4 trillion total on Obama's watch) and never once passed a budget, yet this is somehow the Tea Party's fault? That doesn't pass the laugh test. Leaders accept responsibility, they don't make excuses and play the blame game.

 

So Obama and Democrats should do what the tea party does and do not compromise so that the country can default and let the whole country and world go into the depression? Ya it wasn't tea party's fault, what laughing test are you looking at?

 

Probably because it was the Tea Party that very publicly killed the $4 trillion agreement Boehner and Obama were working on, in favor of a $2.5 trillion agreement. Doesn't help either that the S&P stated they wanted a $4 trillion agreement...

You do realize that outside of $700B in stimulus, none of that was unique to Obama? The remainer was caused by a drop in revenues from a recession and an increase in expenditures for the same reason. Looking at cause and effect is an important part of analysis - you should consider it sometime.

So you would argue that Bush should not blame OBL for 9/11? Roosevelt shouldn't blame Hitler for WW2? Leaders determine actual causes of events and properly analyze what/who was responsible for things and react to that. Only stupid people do otherwise.