Even Obama can't so easily just laugh this one off. On Monday, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor ("S&P") downgraded the United States' credit outlook from "stable" and issued a "negative" outlook on the U.S. government as a debtor for the first time since the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor 70 years ago (as famously described by Bluto Blutarsky in 1962).This means that S&P is expressing very serious doubt that the U.S. government will ever be able to "get its fiscal house in order." While this move is not (yet) an outright cut in the United States' top AAA credit rating, it raises the very real possibility that such a cut will occur in the next two years.
S&P's reasoning: Politicians not being serious about cutting U.S. debt. Said S&P: "More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address long-term fiscal pressure."
My question: What frankly took S&P so long to come to this conclusion, which to me seems as obvious as a surface full of floaters in a Mississippi Shithouse.
My question: What frankly took S&P so long to come to this conclusion, which to me seems as obvious as a surface full of floaters in a Mississippi Shithouse.
The downgrade is significant and bodes grimly upon the future ahead. Right after S&P's announcement, the Dow plunged more than 200 points and closed down more than 140 points.
The reaction of the Obama administration on Monday? To act like a Twisted Transistor making Hawaiian Noises. They tried to spin it, downplay it, and accuse S&P -- a credit ratings agency and not a political organization -- of being "political." How nice.
Couldn't Obama do any better than that? Why not throw into the mix an accusation of S&P being racist for good measure? Or, why not just blame it all on Bush, Palin, global warming and S&P's lack of civility? Yep, I was most disappointed in the lack of creativity in Obama's response. Maybe he's getting as tired as the rest of us?
Posts
