According to Standard & Poor's, it seems as though the debt agreement reached this week was not enough to ward off a downgrade in the US' credit rating, as they did just that in a move yesterday. This is the first time the credit rating has been changed since it attained the highest rating in 1917.
You can read more details at the DDN by clicking here.
Will this wake up the deadbeat Democrats? Doubtful! Obama knows this is on his head, as he and his advisers were said to have been arguing pretty vehemently with S&P about the drop in rating. This wasn't an issue until he took office. The other two credit rating services have the U.S. teetering on a downgrade as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat will be REALLY telling is if the downgrade is still in effect come November, 2012. If Obama is reelected, the course our country is on will be seen as incapable of being reversed. Too many people will have just voted to keep their free handouts over voting to keep America the strongest country on the planet. Too many people will have proven that selfishness has overtaken selflessness in this country.
This should spell the end of Obama and the Democrats in congress. Will it? We can only hope that the true American spirit to persevere and right the ship when falling upon hard times still exists and the party of epic failure is swept out of office.
Congratulations Mr Obama on overseeing the largest loss of wealth, respect and security in this nation's history. I look forward to the media trying to paint it as if his massive record-breaking spending had absolutely nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteAnd just as of Thursday he was hinting that there may be another QE stimulus.
Yes, BOTH parties got us to this point, and yes both parties have spent like drunken sailors, but the additional 5 trillion this president and the Democrat congress have added in the last three years has been the tipping point.
It will take decades to recover what we have lost since he took office.
Whats funny is if this had happened under a republican president they would be screaming for him to be impeached, instead under Barry, they are calling to investigate S&P.
ReplyDeleteWe deserved this downgrade, and any others that follow. If we were a family, we would deserve the 560 credit score we would have.
For anyone to disagree that this is an Obama and Democrat created problem is in denial and needs to check-in at a psychiatric clinic. It is undeniable.
ReplyDeleteFact: We do not have a democrat congress
ReplyDeleteFact bear, you're right. The power is divided in congress right now. And thank God it is. The republicans in the House - this time - were finally able to slow down the insane spending binge of the democrats and Obama.
ReplyDeleteWe just spent two months fighting over how many cuts there would be in the debt limit deal. Now that we've been downgraded, it's obvious that there weren't enough cuts. And do you know who was fighting for those cuts: conservatives. And who was fighting against those cuts: democrats. It turns out those crazy, unhinged tea partiers were right. We did need more cuts.
I'm sick and tired of democrats calling the tea parties crazy (and racist) when instead democrats should be listening to them.
Boy genius geithner said we would never be downgraded. He was wrong. The administration said stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%. It's at 9.1. It's time to call it like it is ...... These guys aren't the smartest guys in the room. They're pretenders, not too bright, and good only at blaming others for the problems they have created.
What do you expect from a community organizer who never held a real job, voted present most of the time during his whole year and a half in the Senate and is the least qualified person in any room he walks in to?
ReplyDeleteGeitner should be fired NOW.
Neither party is fit to govern our nation it seems. Self preservation, pandering to special interests, grandstanding for the media take precedence over making decisions for the common good.
ReplyDeleteI agree, did we just agree on something? lol
ReplyDeleteI think the American people have no idea what it is going to take or mean if we are going to make the changes to save this country. That includes EVERYONE, which means touching the third rail that is Social Security and Medicare. The days of saying hands off are over. It's going to mean a paradigm shift in how people think, and what we expect out of our politicians, anything less and we will continue to slide down the scale to our way to a bankrupt, and third rate country.
I love to read the comments from the same people who wanted to put the country into default just to prove a point. The fact is the GOP will do anything, including ruining the economy, just to win the next election. None of these people said one peep when John Boy and the last congress outspent them all. Suddenly it's a problem. The downgrade is based on total debt, including that which happened under the last administration. Looks like both sides are to blame.
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get your facts? The DEMOCRAT controlled Congress holds the record, as does this current president for spending.
ReplyDeleteTHIS administration is the one that spent 5 trillion and refuses to make actual cuts. So called cuts that don't kick in til 2017, with a spending increase of 2trillion isn't a deal, it is a joke, such is this president and do nothing congress.
Yes, the Republicans spent like they won the lotto, but the Democrats have made their spending spree look like nothing.
This downgrade, and the poor economy are on Obama's shoulders, this is his economy, and it is the reason he will be a one term president, much like the president he seems to be copying (Carter).
A democrat talking about over-spending, oh the irony!
ReplyDeleteLest Anon @ 7:04 p.m. forget, Obama outspent GWB's entire presidency within the first year of the failed Obama's presidency. In the first month of Obama, I believe he was close to accomplishing that incredible feat, let alone the remaining 11 months.
ReplyDeleteSo, unless you are using "John Boy" as a racially derogative term to reference Obama, please come back when you have anything of factual substance to provide to the conversation. Until then, go eat your peas!
LOL The last congress was Nancy pelosi's congress and the dems had the senate and white house. They added 5 trillion to the debt. This down grade should have happened much earlier. I am glad to see it. Maybe the congress and white house will get serious and actually make serious cuts. I doubt it. They need to cut everything from the military to welfare and even sicial security. Everyone needs to take cuts.
ReplyDeleteThe oldest political trick in the liberal play book .....
ReplyDeleteWhen a Republican is in charge, the Republicans are to blame.
When a Democrat is in charge, both parties are to blame.
As usual BE spouts based on nothing but his/her unique view of the world. Perhaps the Congress's 19% approval rating is based on the fact that others (not BE) get it. BE thinks that only one party is to blame (or blame greatly more) because he/she has no idea how things actually work. Get out of Darke County once in a while!
ReplyDelete@9:56 ... It is you who is spouting nonsense. The generic congressional approval rating means nothing, because it is not a rating of an individual person. It's just as f you asked for an approval rating of all lawyers, car salesmen, telemarketers,etc., who also would have horrid approval ratings. If you polled our congressman individually, his rating would be way over 50%. Your citation of the congressional approval rating is just a form of the "blame everybody" method explained by another commenter above.
ReplyDelete9:56.. get real, Obama would lose to a potted plant this election, it's not because he has done a wonderful job. I already said both parties are to blame, but the fact remains, the democrats have played the larger role, I am sorry if the truth is too hard for you to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteWe have the most divisive, marxist, unqualified, unprepared president in history, and surprise surprise, we are now seeing what happens when you put a community organizer in office.
The Democrats are in charge, so yes, they get the brunt of the criticism, I am positive you were one of the big mouths spouting on here about Bush during his term, so drop the BS already.
You liberals have had your chance, and just like every other time, you have failed, now shut the hell up and let the grown ups fix the mess.
Last I checked, the country was a hell of a lot better off under Bush!
The only congressman who has been warning of this condition for literally years, and the only congessman with a functional plan, is and has been Ron Paul. The country would do well to listen to what he has to say.
ReplyDeleteBE:
ReplyDeleteWith your vast knowledge and keen insight, you should run for County Commissioner in the 2012 elections. There are two seats up for grabs. This would be your big chance to put your ideas to work!
Definitely, both parties and the American people as a whole deserve the blame. The country has voted and kept these politicians/looters in charge for years!! This includes Boehner!!
ReplyDeleteOne problem is that the mainstream media does not keep these congress critters in *real* check. We need to know everything that goes on in Washington and abroad that involves our tax money. Another is that our higher education institutions are teaching bad economic policies. It's no wonder when graduates come out of school and think that deficit spending is a good thing... The list goes on and on. Right now, it is the Keynsians that are teaching our colleges. They are looting the country. Their brand of economics can't last; as seen for the past few years to present.
The Austrian school, however, will win in the end and has always won. We must return to sound currency and business practice. We need to reboot our universities and kick out crooks like Geithner and Bernanke. They only believe that gov't should plan the economy and print worthless currency. If one really sees past all of the glitz and glitter of political celebs like Obama and Palin, it should be easy to see that the past several presidents have been very similar in rule.
I believe that Ron Paul would be the only candidate that is qualified to lead this country out of the mess it is in. Do research on him, and you will find out that he actually votes w/ the Constitution every time. He is the only candidate that is different than the others in speech and in practice.
Also, look into the Von Mises Institute, and people like Dr. Thomas Woods and Peter Schiff for different points of view than mainstream media. We need to return to the basics of not spending more than we take in, and taking care of ourselves on the community level. Federal money isn't free anytime. State money isn't free anytime. If our spending and printing of money isn't harnessed, we will be pushing around wheelbarrows full of it.
As a democrat I do think we have not spent enough. We can print money at any time so what's the big deal? Just print the money to pay off our debt. Seems fairly simple to me. I also would install a minimum wage if fifteen dollars an hour. Everybody could make enough to buy food and housing. Medical care should never be a problem for anyone. Build free clinics to take care of people. If you go in a hospital the bill should be sent to the fed govt not the patient. People will be halthier if they don't have to worry about bills.
ReplyDeleteAs a republican, I think we should do away with taxes. The problem the country is in right now is because we collected too many taxes.
ReplyDeleteIn the 90s, we suffered through a surplus because too many taxes were taken. the 2000s finally fixed this by cutting taxes, creating the great economic boom that just hit it's stride about mid 2008.
As a republican I also believe in looking at a worldwide economic crisis that was first exposed by the faulty mortgage market, and finding ways to place blame on someone else, all in an effort to seize power, rather than reasonably help people.
As a republican, I like to evoke the name of Reagan as the pinnacle of conservatism, until someone points out to me that he raised taxes almost a dozen times in this 8 years, never proposed a balanced budget, etc etc.
I believe in cutting social programs when they're needed the most.
Then I read this and changed my mind:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/01/frum.debt.republicans/index.html?hpt=po_r1
Obama....first US president to ever have our credit rating downgraded! Thats change you can believe in. This is what you get when you vote for someone because he is black. One Big A** Mistake America! Obama has reamed Air Force1. It is now known as Downgrade1.
ReplyDelete7:23.. You clearly have NO understanding how any economy runs, and it is exactly that type of thinking that has helped get us where we are now. If we spend any more than utterly necessary, our credit rating will further be downgraded causing a utter collapse of the economy and skyrocketing the price of everything.
ReplyDeleteThe more money you print, the less it is worth, if we printed enough money to pay off our debt, our dollar would be worth so little we couldn't print enough to actually pay the debt off. See how that works? Simply printing money will not work, it has never worked, and we have printed enough of it now that it has weakened the US dollar to the point that some in the world believe it should no longer be the world's standard currency.
A minimum wage of $15 would also drive the cost of EVERYTHING up, raising the minimum wage would force every company with employees to dramatically increase the price of their goods and services. Take Australia for example. They have a minimum wage that is much higher than ours, and the cost of living there is also much much higher. A case of beer cost $50!
I honestly can not tell if you are trolling or are serious, but you are longing for a fantasy land. Simply sending the bill off to the federal government still means you and everyone else will be paying for it, and if it is anything like everything else the federal government pays for it, we will be paying much more for it.
So while your socialistic fairy tale sounds nice, it isn't based in anything resembling reality, and sadly there are politicians who are that naive and ignorant as well. One of them is in the White House right now....
And I see the trolls are out.. aka Sense.
ReplyDeleteYou silly liberals.
A one time debt reduction donation of roughly $46.66 from every one of the nearly 300,000,000 US citizens over the age of 18 would effectively wipe out the 14 trillion dollar debt.
ReplyDeleteThe average consumer in the US spends nearly twice that much weekly for entertainment purposes.
By sacrificing one week of entertainment. We could erase the national debt in one swoop and put our country back on track.
This is a very good synopsis of the present problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is very good and put the whole thing in perspective.
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)
It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.
Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
Amount of money the Jones family spends: $38,200
Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding current balance on the credit card: $142,710
Amount cut from the current budget: $385
So in effect last month Congress, or in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget. Cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending? Will this work? Hmmmmmmm!
It is a start, although hardly a solution.
Now after years of this, the Jones family owes $142,710 of debt on its credit card, and can barely pay the interest each month.
You would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it does not! ............... Neither does Congress.
The root of the debt problem is that the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent there to "bring home the bacon" to their own home state. Sort of like the "Gimmee Tribe".
To effect budget change, we need to change their job description and give Congress new marching orders.
It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it now.
In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country.
The problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the possibility of going into rehab.
The US dollar has poor value outside of the States. Look at any currency converter and you can learn this. I recently lived in a country where it takes $3.65 US to equal 1KD...they had already disassociated their currency from the US dollar right before the housing crash. I would not be the least bit surprised to see even more countries jump ship now and Europe is a bust too...the Asian markets are going to seem much more stable at this point.
ReplyDeleteEaterie. You need to take a math class. It would take each person paying 46,666 dollars to pay off the debt. Be my guest toi send your check.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Eaterie has taught us all a lesson; that many people do not comprehend the nation's debt by a factor of one thousand.
ReplyDelete