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Obama to speak @ 1pm EDT

"A very interesting line in S&P's full report (.pdf) wherein it downgraded the sovereign debt of the US from AAA to AA+.

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise
revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/sp-d...-will-get-lifted-in-2012-2011-8#ixzz1USq0Ge9i
 
The perfect show of S&P being whiney little, unprofessional bitches is that after Warren buffet said he'd give US bond rating AAAA if that existed, S&P downgraded Bershire Hathaway's rating.
 
DeacMan said:
That speach offered nothing new.

He needs to stop talking and start developing ways to incent companies and indivduals who have been hoarding cash to put it to work.
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How can this possibly happen? I am serious. There is no real way, in our current system, to incentivize companies to hire more people. High unemployment is here to stay.
 
i'm not going to pretend to know shit about how all of this works, but i don't understand why everyone started freaking out about the nation's debt and it was unilaterally blamed on spending. i just looked at this cnn map of the remaining AAA nations:

aaa-club2.top.gif


they are pretty much all social welfare styled governments, with a lot more entitlement spending per capita and a lot higher taxes. i realize that europe is in trouble as well, but that's more of an EU thing than that of the individual nations that are blue on that map. as far as those nations go, i think their economies are doing a bit better than ours right now, despite the tax level and spending level.

i'm not saying we need to have 50% tax rates, but i do think that we need to own up for this and pay our way out. basically our entire country fucked up (both parties included), and now we have to own up to it and pay down a dangerously high debt. i just don't understand why that means cutting off every government program. we could pay the debt down by shutting down the government for 6 months while continuing to collect taxes, but obviously that isn't feasible, so it looks like we might have to pay a little bit higher taxes. i don't understand why everyone thinks that raising taxes will have a disastrous effect. would it really be worse for the economy then having more people without health insurance, or without retirement benefits, or without anything to help them rise to a level of a competent consumer?
 
DeacMan said:
That speach offered nothing new.

He needs to stop talking and start developing ways to incent companies and indivduals who have been hoarding cash to put it to work.
Click to expand...

Got some ideas?
 
Wrangor said:
Pubs and Dems had a deal working that would have cut 5T (4T cuts + 1T revenue), but the Tea Party wouldn't sign off on any revenue measures. So that idea that the Tea Party is the only ones serious about deficit reduction is ridiculous. A larger deficit reduction plan was in place, and would have been able to be passed if the TP had gone with Boehner. Instead they forced everyone to come up with a dumbed down version of a debt deal, and it is no surprise that it sucked.
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From what I've read, the TP caucus is composed of about 60-70 members. That leaves a clear majority of 365 members. The reason this deal failed is poor leadership on both sides. The far left wasn't going to vote for this either if entitlements were cut.
 
bobknightfan said:
Arlington always has great posts. I've said that for years. He is the best poster on these boards. His description of this situation...and the Tea Party....is, to borrow a quote from Mona Lisa Vito, "dead on balls accurate".
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BKF's top 5 posters year in and year out:

1) Arlington
2) Diego
3) PH
4) TR
5) Moonzzzzz
 
^

Most of those still-AAA countries enjoy a system of government that tends to compel the executive and legislative branches to work in better concert than does ours. Not that this guarantees better results, but I think it probably tends to enable the government to better accomplish its necessary functions.

Sorry to be a broken record.
 
DeacMan said:
That speach offered nothing new.

He needs to stop talking and start developing ways to incent companies and indivduals who have been hoarding cash to put it to work.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the genius businessmen in the branch of Congress that can actually introduce legislation should come up with some ideas and introduce them as legislation.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Perhaps the genius businessmen in the branch of Congress that can actually introduce legislation should come up with some ideas and introduce them as legislation.
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agreed. didn't Boehner sweep a bar as kid and then work his way up to running it? Aren't folks who do that economic experts? why is he holding out on us?
 
PhDeac said:
Got some ideas?
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Sure. There are lots of ideas that have been floated in the press just over the last few days. These are but a few:

1 - Incent companies to drill for oil

2 - Incent the production of ethanol

3 - Loosen depreciation rules on capital equipment

4 - Decrease tax burdens associated with bringing cash back to the United States from foreign subsidiaries

Quit thinking that the government is the only party that can spend money and drive growth. Rather incent the private sector to do it. They'll react faster and more efficiently.

Stop talking about free trade agreements and things that will take years to implement. They are fine to pursue, but they won't get anything moving immediately.
 
Marietta Deac said:
From what I've read, the TP caucus is composed of about 60-70 members. That leaves a clear majority of 365 members. The reason this deal failed is poor leadership on both sides. The far left wasn't going to vote for this either if entitlements were cut.
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That narrative somehow isn't floated. It's sort of like the convenient narrative that we'd never have faced a downgrade if we'd just raised the debt ceiling without any restrictions whatsoever - despite clear signals to the contrary.

Btw, over the next few weeks we are all going to see the fallout from this downgrade. There will be a lot of downgrades of other entities because of their ties to the Federal government.
 
ArlingtonDeac said:
Myself, I think that, other than revamping HC, the economic picture would have played out almost exactly the same way under a McCain presidency. The massive government spending would have been the same, almost certainly. I am continually surprised that Pubs claim the mantle of economic austerity, despite never having acting under such principles when in office. And I'm not sure how you first and foremost attack the men trying to plug the dam, and give only secondary blame to the architects of its weakening in the first place.

I criticize the TP because they are ideological absolutists, which is next to useless when it comes to actually governance. The debt ceiling crisis only highlighted their basic childishness toward governance. Obama certainly was inexperienced three years ago, I'll grant, but his trending towards the middle, and toward compromise, over the last twelve months makes him seem the most reasonable man in the picture, at this point. IMO.

I don't want ideologues. I want qualified, experienced adults who can work with other politicians who see things differently, and come up with reasonable compromise solutions where everyone gives a little in exchange for the greater good. The TP seems incapable of that as a core principle. They want only to attack and demonize, and are unwilling to compromise (indeed, they seem to think that any sort of reasonable give-and-take is some sort of a betrayal, which is effectively poisoning Congress's ability to react to challenging times). But this is what happens when one of our two parties gives the reins over to the fringe.
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Who did you vote for in 2008?
 
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