Quote from TGregg:
Now we face an interesting situation. The credit rating agencies say they stand poised to downgrade. If I were a truly independent rating agency and some ginormous country was running up a massive debt with no apparent political will to even slow down, I'd be thinking downgrade.
Quote from TGregg:
. . . that was spectacularly well played. They engage in a massive, well publicized debate that "immediately" "cuts" government. Never mind that the "cuts" are reduced increases. And never mind that none of them happen `til 2013, and most of them don't happen for several years. The GOP climbs on board, grateful to appease their rebel rabble TPers with at least token cuts.
Meanwhile QE2 ends. Or stops increasing, anyway. And the economy tanks into a mid term election. Soon we'll hear all about these massive, immediate cuts killing the economy. Massive, immediate cuts that were insisted upon and achieved by the lunatic fringe (buncha irresponsible losers who think that government cannot spend more than it brings in forever, sheesh). Thus, come election time, the best answer to our economic malaise is more government and more taxes on those "winners in life's lottery" who have managed to hold onto a job.
Quote from TGregg:
What we need to do is start a new country based on liberty. Tough to do, though. But holy $#*&, that country'd own the planet. Which is what makes it so hard. The libtards are ready to kill to stop it, and so are the "God Fearing" conservatives. Most everyone has a hand in enslaving mankind in own form or another. Most everyone stands ready to tell someone else what they can, cannot and must do. Few have achieved the intellectual level required to acknowledge that everyone is their own person and as long as their actions do not infringe upon the equal rights of another, they are free to act.
Flame on.
Quote from TGregg:
Now we face an interesting situation. The credit rating agencies say they stand poised to downgrade. If I were a truly independent rating agency and some ginormous country was running up a massive debt with no apparent political will to even slow down, I'd be thinking downgrade.
If the credit rating agencies can stand with sword in hand saying to the US "Get your #@*^ing house in order or ELSE!" Well, we might have a solution. We might have a source of pain that brings us around before the ultimate and unrecoverable pain of failed credit markets.
OTOH, DC has shown to be HIGHLY resourceful. It is a real (if not likely) possibility that they'll find a way to influence and corrupt the system to stop this from ever happening.