It Begins!!!!!

S&P Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating To AA+
Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of the United States, stripping the world's largest economy of its prized AAA status.



And meanwhile in Chicago last night:



Don't know about a lot of you but I say that's the very definition of the innate hollowness of leading a political life when you end up on your nearest and dearest moments or most personal evenings with donors. That should -- that should tell you all you need to know about the ramble that is politics. You take your 50th birthday and you start hanging out with donors.

George Soros wins again!

.....and here is more from another reputable news source:



Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the United States' credit rating for the first time in the history of the ratings.

The credit rating agency said that it is cutting the country's top AAA rating by one notch to AA-plus. The credit agency said that it is making the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country's debt situation.

A source familiar with the discussions said that the Obama administration feels the S&P's analysis contained "deep and fundamental flaws."

S&P said that in addition to the downgrade, it is issuing a negative outlook, meaning that there was a chance it will lower the rating further within the next two years. It said such a downgrade to AA would occur if the agency sees less reductions in spending than Congress and the administration have agreed to make, higher interest rates or new fiscal pressures during this period.

S&P first put the government on notice in April that a downgrade was possible unless Congress and the administration came up with a credible long-term deficit reduction plan and avoided a default on the country's debt.

After months of wrangling and negotiations with the administration, Congress passed this week a debt reduction package at the 11th-hour that averted a possible default.
In its statement, S&P said that it had changed its view "of the difficulties of bridging the gulf between the political parties" over a credible deficit reduction plan.
S&P said it was now "pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics anytime soon."

Can't understand why the rating wasn't lowered months ago.

Me thinks it's going to get very ugly on Wall Street on Monday.

SF

Friday afternoon, I'm on the 10 access road in the by far wealthiest zip code in SA. Bag of garbage, been there a couple days, big chrome strip off a truck looks like, some other car parts all over the road, and I'm swerving around this crap like I was on the old Sabinas Hidalgo / Monterrey HWY.

I havent checked my conservative mutual funds, but when the stock market did this in 2007-2008, my retirement went down about $300k. Probably went down about $60k last week but who wants to look? I dont make my own investment decisions because I would invest in <5' strange with A cups and glasses that swallow and TUMA like they like it, but conservative mutual funds ought to be stable. And they are not.

I'm listening on the radio and hear about not enough electricity in TX grid, 45 minute brownouts coming. First I think I'll go home and cut off an AC zone for a while, but then I thought, why? Gonna stop me from sweating thru a brownout? probably not.

The America I grew up in pretty much honored its obligations, except maybe in Central America. And things pretty much worked. The greatest generation BUILT those amazing highways, and they were well maintained and not debris covered until very recently.

Its very clear that we have turned a corner to second rate status. I dont know why. The taxes I pay every year are about 5 times what my dad earned in a year through the early 70's. And we were as middle class as anyone. Why are things so fucked up?

No Dennis, Obama didnt cause this in the last 3 years. Its like we are on a downhill slippery slope, and cant get off.

. . . Obama didnt cause this in the last 3 years. Its like we are on a downhill slippery slope, and cant get off. Originally Posted by flinde

I agree that Obama's personal Marxist leanings* are not the cause, but the most obvious symptom of a greater disease. Yet his administration's policies are causing the slope to dip more steeply. When people vote for government to legally steal hard-earned resources from others--"fairly" redistribute--it's only a matter of time before the people creating the resources tire of the legal thieves and leave. It's already begun. Until the country decides to curb this redistribution, until we all decide to earn first what we spend later, the slope will get steeper I fear. And when we slide off at the bottom, those who have stolen won't know how to survive.

(*--Rodram, if you or other die-hard Obamaniacs are reading, the source is your messiah's own books. Read them and learn. Or likely, don't.)