Of course, it’s only natural that Republicans will try to avert blame for our credit downgrade. What’s their alternative? To accept some responsibility? But I hope at least privately that a good many of them are looking in the mirror. For a party that likes to accuse the Democrats of turning our nation into some run-of-the-mill European country, they’ve managed to do the one thing that actually makes us resemble Spain or Italy. As they plot to murder the federal government in Grover Norquist’s bathtub, it’s inevitable that eventually people will lose respect for our country and stop seeing it as a model of stability and a great and safe place to invest.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Is the saying “No rest for the weary” or “No rest for the wicked”??
Either way in this case, I guess it’s “No rest for the weary”. Twitter is ablaze that President Obama will be coming back from Camp David early maybe today. Has anyone else heard that?
Look out your windows folks, are pigs flying and/or is the deviling wearing skis….
From twitter: @edhenrytv “Remember President Obama pushed for a “Grand Bargain” that would have cut approximately $4 trillion in debt, but Speaker John Boehner walked.”
Obama has done the best he can in a very difficult situation. Whether S&P is competent or ideologically motivated or screwed up the housing bubble is all irrelevant. The rating agencies have real power, deserved or not, and this has real consequences.
In a NYT article this morning on international reaction to the downgrade, the money quote (literally) is at the very end, from the Chinese government’s official house organ, the Xinhua News Agency:
Got that? The US’s largest creditor, by far, thinks the US government is not responsible enough to control its own currency. And a combination of Republican policies then (Bush’s unfunded wars and tax cuts) and now (ideological intransigence, refusal to allow Congress or the President to raise revenues) is directly responsible.
The S&P downgrade is a product of exactly the same rationale used by the IMF to impose structural adjustment programs (slashing social spending, etc.) on Third World countries. What China is saying is that US currency ought not be the global reserve currency, and international bankers of the IMF sort ought to be the ones managing the US debt because Republicans are nuts even compared to them.
Booman was right this morning, but vastly understated the case in pointing out that this downgrade had been in the works for months and Obama tried to prevent it. We’ve been heading down this road 30 years, ever since the Reagan ideology that you could spend recklessly and cut taxes and balance the budget and somehow grow the economy because the dominant US economic narrative. We’ve been in thrall to magical thinking masked as ideological purity for over three decades, and only the massive economic power of the US prevented the international banking vultures from seizing on our underlying economic and political weakness years ago. There’s a lot more coming down this road.
The irony, of course, is that the same ideological Neanderthals who hate the very idea of the United Nations because it impinges somehow on sacred US sovereignty, have been responsible for every one of the disasters that is leading inexorably to the US losing its sovereignty in a very real way.
Welcome to the Third World. Obey your unelected masters. Hope your retirement money isn’t in dollars.
became the dominant economic narrative…
We’ve been in thrall to magical thinking masked as ideological purity for over three decades, and only the massive economic power of the US prevented the international banking vultures from seizing on our underlying economic and political weakness years ago. There’s a lot more coming down this road.
Those vultures have us now. And if you don’t think so, you haven’t been paying attention. Also, did you hear Panetta the last few days? Do you really think he said what he did with out WH approval?
China is NOT the US’s largest creditor.
Why do people insist that this is true?
We owe them less than $1 Trillion.
Our debt is over $14 Trillion. Do the math.
Fuck China. They have no business preaching about how to manage a currency.
If they want to cash out, the Federal Reserve could easily buy up their bonds. But you know what? They don’t want to. Why? Because US debt is the safest investment in the world.
You’re taking S&P’s political hackery WAY too seriously.
The largest US creditor is actually the Social security fund. Its one of the reasons that the Republicans want to destroy it and/or privatize it.
I am VERY shocked by the high ratings of this comment that I’m replying to. Does this mean you all agree with this?
Only maybe half of this comment is fact. Does it just get your juices going to read it put this way? Are you so convinced the Chinese and Russians should create a new currency? Massive fail there because no one trusts either one of them. They do trust the US. Let’s try to keep it that way. Or are we going to let a politically-motivated rating from a crooked ratings agency dictate our faith in our own country. That’s pretty fucked up.
Sorry guys.
Bullshit. Have a little faith in your god-damned country and look forward to a positive future. And shut down S&P. They have NO RIGHT playing politics with our sovereign credit rating.
C’mon!!!
Did you miss it?
That’s already happened. When? Somewhere around the time that the rest of the world realized that Bush II had stolen two elections and on top of that the BushCo gang was totally, absolutely incompetent on every level.
The United States is now in free-fall.
Failure mode.
The red lights are blinking and the sirens are wailing all over the world. Only in the U.S. is NJ’s Snooki slut’s opinion of some lame morning TV show’s bared breast “mishap” given equal space with the looming crash.
“A model of stability?”
“A great and safe place to invest?”
Please!!!
AG
C’mon!!!
Did you miss it?
That’s already happened. When? Somewhere around the time that the rest of the world realized that Bush II had stolen two elections and on top of that the BushCo gang was totally, absolutely incompetent on every level.
The United States is now in free-fall.
Failure mode.
The red lights are blinking and the sirens are wailing all over the world. Only in the U.S. is NJ’s Snooki slut’s opinion of some lame morning TV show’s bared breast “mishap” given equal space with the looming crash.
“A model of stability?”
“A great and safe place to invest?”
Please!!!
AG
I think you’re getting a little bit ahead of actual events, AG.
We still are seen as the safest place to invest. The markets proved it this week. So many sought “safety” in their investments, buying treasuries despite all of the hoopla over US debt levels that interest rates on treasuries dropped daily.
People still have confidence in US Treasuries, but they may not have such confidence in US corporations.
AND they have zero confidence in our much screwed up political system. In the S & P press release it said that explicitly. That basically our Congress is in an ideological gridlock and this debt ceiling is just the beginning of the great fall of the U.S. I have no clue what Obama should do now. Arguing with S & P over a mathematical error isn’t going to change anything.
As Christine Romer said on Bill Mahr’s show, we are f—ed.
We sure as hell are and it appears even our greated minds can’t figure out what to do now.
None of us should take S&P seriously. In fact we should all question their right to exist. Perhaps even demand that they be taken out of business, sued out of existence, or whatever. It is not their business to play politics with their so-called “analysis.” No one on Wall Street is going to take them seriously. This bad (politically motivated) call will have no impact whatsoever on our cost of debt UNLESS the other ratings agencies follow. And they have already indicated that they will not.
I saw the Bill Maher interview with Romer. If we stay on the current messaging path, we really are fucked. But if we use this a a bludgeon against the R’s, we might salvage the situation.
Hah.
What the fuck is Snooki?
Nicole Polizzi, fake Garden Stater.
Oh her!!
Not a fan of the whole Jersey Shore gang.
Fans of the show “Bones” will remember what I thought was the funniest show ever of theirs where Bones went to the Jersey Shore and, anthropologist that she is, named them the “Guido Tribe” and analyzed their overly-stereotypical behavior for what it was, in a totally clinical fashion.
Brilliant.
With no taxation on anyone remaining with any money and no ability to borrow, how in the world do Republicans expect to buy the votes of the know-nothings?
It’s the corporations that are buying the votes in the first place. The Republicans are just the sometimes useful middlemen.
I think what I meant was no $300/$600 Tax Rebate checks like they did to win in 2004, along with a great deal of election-rigging (Ohio, anyone?)
But I agree. The corporations and US Chamber of Commerce do pretty much arrange elections as best they can now.
But that can all change once there’s no more Middle-Class to buy their products and services anymore. Let’s hope it never gets that far. But that’s how short-sighted these fools are. They just can’t see beyond the next quarterly bonus.
They “buy” votes through wedge social issues that make people think that they will personally go to hell if gays are allowed to marry, women are allowed to enjoy sex, if someone occasionally gets high in their basement, or of non-Christians are allowed to openly practice their religion.
Fear of the other.
.
Just semantics, surprise? Why doesn’t Obama pounce on this opening and announce the Bush Tax Cuts will end in 2012.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Better yet, DEMAND it happen NOW. Have Pelosi or Reid introduce a bill and watch it fail. Then blame it on you know who. (You’ll have roll-call votes.)
Then, of course, guarantee that it will never be renewed.
Are their responsible Republicans left? It’s true they used the energy of the tea party Republicans to push this, but Boehner and Cantor and McConnell all seemed happy to milk it for all it was worth.
Responsible Republicans? When? Jacob Javits? Fightin’ Bob LaFollette?
In the pre-Reagan years, we had some “reasonable Republicans.” We even had some up until recently. But now they’ve all been fed their marching orders. Follow the fascist corporate agenda or get the hell out. So the good ones left.
There are a few. Very few. They have learned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Once in a while they vote the right way when it really matters. And no, I’m not going to name names.
I guess you guys are talking about Congress. I believe there must still be some reasonable republicans in state and local government, and among voters. But I have no definite information.
There are a few out in the states. For example, I have no problem with our current Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval. A former federal judge, very handsome Latino man with a lovely family who is gay-friendly, seemingly liberal socially. He can work with our Dem-controlled legislature.
I don’t love his political ideas but he probably doesn’t like mine either. At least we can find some common ground though. That’s all I expect. He could definitely work a fair deal with Democrats when needed. I’m sure of that. He’s a fair kind of guy who loves his constituents and really means well.
“International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced, and a new stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.”
This is an eminently reasonable conclusion for the international community to come to. That dollars are practically the world’s currency is still an amazing advantage for the U.S. I’ve been cynical about Republicans for a while, but I’m still shocked they would risk throwing something so valuable away.
Who said that quote?
I think I read that this is a quote form the Chinese
Okay. I heard that too. That was a discussion between China and Russia, I think.
Fuck them. Seriously. China’s really one to talk here. They manipulate their currency to make their exports cheaper than anyone in the world could possibly match the price of, even at a loss, which is really just charged against the standard of living of the average Chinese laborer. No one trusts either of them, but they do trust the US (for the time being anyway.)
We need to express to the world right now that they can continue to trust us and that we are cleaning house of the liars and the politically opportunistic ratings agency that is causing this new round of turmoil.
Shut down S&P.
China owns us. And they are pissed. That by itself is scary shit. I don’t just put this all on the shoulders of Obama and Congress. I also blame the nutjob Americans who blindly voted these teabaggers into office. We need recall elections throughout the country now, not just in Wisconsin.
Like that’s gonna happen anytime soon.
Can you find the article about the S&P downgrade on FoxNews.com? It’s hiding behind Waldo..
http://www.foxnews.com/
As usual, the Republicans don’t lack for gall. They’re calling on Geitner to resign in the wake of the S&P downgrade. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/06/republicans-want-geithner-to-walk-plank-after-credit-down
grade/
I see this development as way worse for the GOP than for Obama. In fact it gives the Democrats a very powerful weapon, if they will only use it. S & P has specifically attributed the downgrade to Republican fuckheadedness.
.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."