Friday, August 05, 2011

U.S. Sovereign Credit Downgrade

Standard & Poors (S&P) has downgraded the US "long term sovereign credit rating" to AA+; t,he first downgrade in United States history. Now, one may challenge the capacity of S&P to render any valid judgment given their part in the last economic debacle or challenge on the numbers. As I expressed earlier, the perception and reality of the rhetoric from the Republican Right, which created the unnecessary fight over the debt ceiling, built a debt "situation" into political stagnation and economic chaos. Banks, businesses (small and large), pensioners, foreign markets, citizens (red and blue) and our own ratings agencies became the Henny Pennys, and Goosey Loosies, taking in the T-bag carrying Chicken Little rants that the "sky was falling" on the United States. Again, we, the mere farm animals, had better wake up before Foxey Loxey (A Bachman, Perry, Palin, Cain, or ....) takes control.

S&P says "too little, too late" in the budget agreement numbers but the broader fundamental issue as stated by S&P is that:

"More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness,
stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political
institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic
challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a
negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.


Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the
gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us
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 any
time soon."

http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245316529563

I say again that the Republican Party, as presently constituted and directed, is a greater threat to our democracy and constitutional structure than the Communist Party of the United States" ever attained.

No comments: