S&P Downgrades US Credit Rating From AAA to AA+, LOL...!

The Teapression is alive and well.

Downgraded due to not enough spending cuts in the bill. We have to get our financial house in order. Liberal tax and spend has not worked. We said it would not work.

Does this company have the right to grade the US credit at all?? I doubt it, they were one of the companies that gave great ratings to companies that were a house of cards and fell down in 2008.

Their rating is meaningless and Geitner should be putting this out hard.

You mean the US rating is lower than bundled mortgage backed securities? I wonder how the one person that tilted this decision in favor of reducing our credit rating voted in 2008.

President Obama does NOT deserve any fallout from this! This is purely the making of the political right, corporate and media.

You are greatly deceived by the abundance of propaganda giving the impression of legitimacy to bull sh#t.

You can help yourselves by supporting President Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Barbara Boxer and so on. These people are standing up for you, empower them to do so.

This lack of confidence came about because of the constant wrangling in Congress.

Another drop your linen and start your grinnin moment brought to you by the same assholes that brought you the bank bailout and our bullshit, just say no to illness, health care system. The economy is beyond salvage and as long as we are willing to settle for shit cause our appointed officials say it's vanilla ice cream, well, your toothpicks are gonna come out looking kinda funny in color. When we gonna scrape our political system, which is the root of our economic melt down and when we gonna jail our corporate crooks?

I agree with your thoughts, Common. This is another Wall Street dog and pony show. The American people get screwed..again. It's another way to raise interest rates and slow down the economy.

Aw the rich robber barons are showing disfavor with the serfs. AAA to AA+? Yes, the true worth of America can be found in stringing some letters together and placing false value on a system designed to subjugate what is truly worthwhile. Time for them to go down.

I'm with you on your outrage. 'F' em. Wall Street and the Corporate mafia..funded and placed the tparty into power. If they can destroy the gov't with Obama as it's leader..then all the better...keeps 'friendly' repubs and moneychangers alike above the frey. Obama played this about as poorly as he could. He has to do better. 'F' em.

He's brought this all on himself. And this "super Congress" or whatever is kind of pointless. Obama has already negotiated the outcome. For the rethuglicans, its a "heads we win, tails you lose" framework, that guarantees that entitlements will be cut.

Must be time to contract the money supply again, eh?

**Edit**

The whole report is only 5 pages long, and worth the read.

http://www.standardandpoors.com/home/en/us

Standard and Poors, downgraded our credit rating? These are the same people that said mortgage backed securitities were a good buy. How can anyone take them serious? I wish someone in government would call them up and tell them where to put their rating.

Enough!Why do keep calling the extremists on the right "The Tea Party".This is just the same 25% of the Republican Party that's been making a lot of noise since Newt(and we all know how well that ended)If this fakers are really a party,stop bitching,register as a third party ,show us your platform,nominate some people and let's see how strong you are;this people are the squeaky wheel, cowards that have no intention of taking any responsibly or offer any ideas other than "I don't wan't to pay taxes"crap.On top of that they think they are more american than anybody with their name and motto (Don't tread on me)But they are missing the point,when we say free in America,it doesn't mean free as in not paying for it!!

its all part of the plan the people in power have decided to go another direction
and the us is in the way.and our goverment is not calling the shots havent for a long time.the only question is how will we the people deal with it from within and how will the rest of the world do it with out our help america does some bad things around the world but we also help a ton of people also,

there is more to the S&P statement than most articles are mentioning. Specifically, the statement points the finger at the GOP intransigence on not raising revenues
(from Think Progress)
In explaining their decision Standard & Poors cites both the decision by Republicans in Congress to turn the debt ceiling into a political football and the Republicans intransigence on tax increases. Some excerpts from the release:

[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

[...]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.

Standard & Poors indicates that they could improve their rating for the U.S. if “the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating.”

Spot on letter from Michael Moore( long, but worth the read):

30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died ...a letter from Michael Moore

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Friends,

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they've succeeded.

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?

Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.

Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:

* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.

* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.

* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.

* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.

* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!

* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!

And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:

The AFL-CIO.

The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.

Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.

And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.

And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.

I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.

But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).

It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?

Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.

When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?

Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling:

Showdown in America
Democracy Convention
Occupy Wall Street
October 2011
How to Join a Union, from the AFL-CIO (They've learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE
Change to Win
MoveOn
High School Newspaper (Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you can't do anything!)

That's only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. And I think that our Titanic nation is about to hit that bitch head on.

Some people have a serious thinking disorder. Anyway, are we getting the hint that it might be time to pull out of some wars already?! Third world country, here we come. All while Cantor has a shit-eating grin on his face.

"making Obama look bad " He doesn't need any help doing this. He is accomplishing it all by himself.
We are lucky to have the Tea Party to defend us against the administration and their know nothing economic models. The bill Obummer signed was a disaster but could have been much worse for us had the liberals gotten their way. MOre spending, what this bill has but not as much as it cold have been, coupled with job killing tax increases would have been too much. Once again, we need to return to a limited government. Obummers buddies in the banking system are not doing us any favors. That said, we need not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and remember that nothing happens in the financial sector without government sanction and oversight.
Thank you Obummer for making a situation worse. WE have proven again that liberalism and statism is not the answer. We need to take a lesson from Greece and Italy or we run the risk of becoming these two here. Even Italy is seeking to institute a balanced budget amendment. They realize that spending the way it has been does not work. Nanny state control does not work. Lower taxes, reduce compliance costs of doing business, estimated to be approx. $2 Trillion per year. This hidden tax is also what is killing us and inhibiting job creation. It is not the Tea Party, the only group that seems to be interested in fiscal sanity. Prosecute the liberals, their policies are ruining this country.

While this is the fault of the corporate-backed teabaggers, fox news is already putting all the blame on Obama. I'm not a fan of Obamas but this can not be laid at his feet.

Fuck these Hamiltonian institutions. Jefferson told Hamilton to shove his brittish banks (the world bank of its time) and we should do the same with these. As they, the rich love to say "Let them eat cake and see how "they" like it.

F**k the Republican Party and the Tea Party, They should be filing criminal charges against them right now. Their purpose is to destroy Obama even if they have to destroy the Country to do it. The whole lot of them should be on trial. If this was a Communist group the people would not stand for it, the Republican Party and the Tea Party are as bad as the Communist Party.

I saw this coming.