The Tea Party Downgrade
to describe S.&P.'s downgrade of the United States from AAA to AA+.
Bob Kuttner reaffirms what I said a few days ago about S.&P.:
For starters, these are the same people who brought us the crisis, by blessing junk sub-prime loans as AAA securities. And they did so because they were paid as consultants by the same financial scoundrels who created the securities.
The executives of the credit rating companies -- not "agencies," for these are private, profit-making, essentially unregulated companies, not public entities -- belong in prison."
Exactly true. Why should we accept S.&P.'s opinion on this when its recent track record on important credit ratings -- viz: bundled subprime mortgages -- is no better than AIG's ... or Trek Bicycle's for that matter? They're just a private company which has already shown itself to be either corrupt or incompetent.
(You can read the rest of Kuttner's commentary here.)
While members of both parties are upset with Standard and Poor's, the decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating has provided Republicans and Democrats a new chance to attack their least favorite political opponents.
ReplyDeleteFor Republicans, it's President Obama.
For Obama aides and other Democrats, it's the Tea Party.
"This is, without question, the Tea Party downgrade," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on NBC's Meet The Press.
The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said conservative House Democrats threatened a government default and blocked Obama's efforts for a major debt reduction deal because they opposed higher taxes on wealthy Americans.
Republicans, meanwhile, said Obama's spending policies on health care, the stimulus and other items have increased the debt, slowing growth and job creation.
How is the Tea Party to blame? Did you actually read S&P's rationale?
ReplyDelete"How is the Tea Party to blame?" asks Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteDoes Anonymous read the newspapers? I read both S&P's rationale as well as commentaries, and I advise Anonymous to consider the evidence that the Tea Party has made any sort of bi-partisan solution of America's financial problems virtually impossible.
S&P downgraded us because of our huge deficits, not because of the Tea Party
ReplyDelete