US Rating Downgraded by US credit agency.

Looks like America is going dfown the shitter http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/us-usa-debt-downgrade-idUSTRE7746VF20110806

Table Flipppin Mad (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Remember, kids, college loans are forgiven if you die!

edited 5th Aug '11 6:37:04 PM by OhSoIntoCats

Well, after looking at that, let's be honest, it's not that bad. It's only one agency out of three major ones, it was like going from an A+ GPA to a simple A. The impact of this is probably more a matter of national pride than overly serious economic consequences.

I don't see why we couldn't have parked the Army outside the credit rating's HQ and "convinced them it was in their best interest" to keep our rating AAA.

It's probably not too bad. Definitely not as bad as it would have been if we'd done nothing. We went from AAA to AA+. We -would- have gone to B.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?

The law, specifically the First Amendment.

@Mark: Because we can't afford that.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Problem with a downgrade: We're losing 1 billion per year as a result in tax revenue.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

^Because those agencies apparently already are gaining a strong tendency to be considered stooges of the American Empire, according to some posts. E.g. the O Bama admin tried to keep them from downgrading those before releasing, and that they were informed of this before downgrading the rating. The other countries apparently weren;t

Table Flipppin Mad (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

This also means we need to come up with $2 trillion of some sort in relatively short order. Who here has $6,000 or so to spare? :P

Fortunately I don't have debt.

I was about to buy an investment property, but now I should probably wait to see if housing prices fall again.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Bear in mind that S&P could downgrade further if fast improvements aren't made.

This is guaranteed to mean more chaos in the markets on Monday. Congratuations, Tea Party scum - you've really fucked things up this time.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

This seemed somewhat inevitable to me, really; mistakes always have repercussions.

I'm hoping that this doesn't get worse; and that the side at fault for the downgrade doesn't manage to spin it in their favour.

Well with the tea party basically destroying any realistic chance of a sensible budget, America may have to brace for further downgrades. It's actually quite surprising that the US government is losing its grip over the agencies and it's gotten so bad that they are downgrading. Dropping from AAA to AA is mostly the fact that even a puppet company of the government got fed up.

I'm sure it'll somehow be blamed on Obama in the end.

Fed up? Fed up with sane anti-recession policy!? I'd very much like you to explain the credit agencies' justification in this.

Eric,

I think the credit agencies are dicks who have a long pole up their butts.

It's not sane whatsoever. America doesn't impose taxes on the rich or the corporations and require the middle class and poor to shoulder the burden of the growing debt.

If they did some crazy Keynesian spending stimulus again, there would be justification for more debt. Right now, they're piling on debt because they don't want to tax the rich. That's not sane.

^^^ Sane "anti-recession" policies? Nearly a trillion in stimulus and twice utilizing qualitative easing (shorthand for throwing money around by printing it), and the result is 26 months of 9% or higher unemployment? That's sane?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We've tried stimulus and the "sane anti-recession policy" THREE TIMES and got nothing to show for it. That looks pretty insane to a lot of smart folks.

Worse, economic data in the last three months points to an imminent double-dip recession either way.

edited 5th Aug '11 8:01:56 PM by MajorTom

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Well to nitpick, Tom, it wasn't to get rid of unemployment or anything. The spending was meant to hold the jobless rate steady and/or hope it didn't get worse.

^ And it failed at that!

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

I suppose, but I more blame congress' inability to perform these past 26 months. I thought that Congress was paralysingly idiotic back under Bush, but the partisanship has only gone up since then.

They couldn't even get financial regulation legislation passed given what had happened over subprime mortgages. What are the mortgage rules in the states? Canada has tightened them two times now, erasing any loosening that occurred since the right-wingers took power because they realised it was wrong. Do American politicians do the same? No. They sit on their ideology and fight to the death for it, for absolutely no reason.

edited 5th Aug '11 8:11:03 PM by breadloaf

And the credit agencies are NOT demanding that, instead they're demanding austerity-driven budget balancing in the middle of a recession, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what FDR did (use debt in a bust, pay it off in the ensuing boom) to bring us from the Great Depression into the Golden Age of Capitalism. Before the legislative dialog was derailed by this budget farce, Obama WAS carrying out stimulus policies.

Eric,

^ And they were going nowhere. Moody's and the other agencies saw that.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Well, okay fine, their solution is totally flawed, but I can't disagree with the situation of the credit rating. The US doesn't have to listen to what they say and still install sane policy.

I mean, they're pretty much hand in hand with IMF and World Bank when it comes to ridiculous austerity measures. However, I do think that the credit rating of the US should fall. If you can actually risk a default on a government bond, that's not AAA. That's not AAA at all.

Let's see, there is a NGO that wants to exercise authority over the only sane superpower on the planet. Either they're supremely stupid, or they have ulterior motives. I go for the latter. Personally, if I were President, I'd tell them to shove it or I'd nationalize them. I don't care about ethics when what they're doing could cause whole sections of the world economy collapse, and cause the only remotely arguably "good guys" with a large standing army fall off the deep end while a much more immoral force would be much less impacted...

I am now known as Flyboy.