dpnewell wrote:This thread is mind boggling. We are 14.5+ Trillion in debt. We are adding to it at the rate of 1 Trillion per year, yet Fuzz is arguing that doing away with the Bush Tax Cuts for the "rich", which would generate around 68 billion per year, would have appeased our creditors, and some how made everything peachy keen.
Let's put this in real life terms that some of you may or may not be able to comprehend. You have a Home Equity Line of Credit. Currently, you owe $145,000 more then your house and total assets are worth and you are borrowing an additional $10,000 a year against that line, while using almost half of that to pay the interest due on the loan. Your lender is upset with the money you owe and continue to borrow. You go to your lender and say "I’ve made some cuts in my standard of living, so for the next 10 years, I hope to only borrow an additional $7,500 per year, and to show good faith, I’ll be making a $680 principal payment each year. We're cool now, right?" Good thing your maniac nephew didn’t act like a terrorist and prevent you from making that $680 principal payment or the bank may have lowered your credit rating. I don't know what you are smoking, Fuzz, but I could use a little of it right about now.
Each man, women and child in this country are currently responsible for almost $47,000 in government debt. Reflect on that some time.
Comparing the entire country's economic system and debt to a home equity shows a total misunderstanding of economics in the first place as it is an over-simplification of a complex multi-faceted situation, much of which is determined by uncontrollable, but somewhat predictable variables.
I also never said what you suggested in your first paragraph.
From an article yesterday:
A day after Standard & Poor's took the unprecedented step of downgrading the creditworthiness of the United States government, the ratings agency offered a full-throated defence of its decision, calling the bitter standoff between President Barack Obama and Congress over raising the debt ceiling a “debacle,” and warning that further downgrades may lie ahead.
In an unusual Saturday conference call with reporters, senior S&P officials insisted the ratings firm hadn't overstepped its bounds by focusing on the political paralysis in Washington as much as fiscal policy in determining the new rating.
“The debacle over the debt ceiling continued until almost the midnight hour,” said John Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign ratings committee.
Another S&P official, David Beers, added that “fiscal policy, like other government policy, is fundamentally a political process.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1035663--s-p-fires-back-amid-criticism-over-downgrade?bn=1
S&P themselves have stated, in their report and in subsequent releases and statments, that the fight itself and the inability to come up with a balanced and reasonable solution was a major factor that lead to the downgrade.
