What Republicans Hope To Accomplish In 60 Days

With Healthcare: do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation – which in this case means:

1. finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance;
2. to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options;
3. to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians;
4. to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law;
5. to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil.

If you are Republican and this is NOT how you wish to be represented, change your party affiliation to Independent now.

Here is the website…. 

OOPS, France Just Lost Their Credit Rating

Everyone remembers Standard and Poors? They were the only credit rater to downgrade America’s debt during last summer’s debt crises. Of course the question arose in everyone’s mind, gee, why didn’t the other two follow suit, which upon investigation, it was proven that Standard and Poors made a miscalculation…

When confronted with details of that gross miscalculation by the Treasury Department, Standard and Poors, said.. “well, despite our having made a mistake, we are keeping it the erroneous rating intact.. ” …

If you remember, up until their announcement, the markets were surprising us by rebounding, over the positive discussion coming out of the political summit on Capitol Hill.

Expectation was that someone on their inside, had bet the wrong way and then, had to throw the race in order not to lose it all….

This time, the France episode was blamed on a computer error.

It said that in December 2010, it had placed its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) for France on the company’s main Global Credit Portal.

They did this as a test, but eventually did not place the other country BICRA rankings on the portal.

When S&P on Thursday issued a new review of BICRA rankings, the ranking page for France on the portal automatically was made “N/A”, or “not available”.

That triggered emails to subscribers notifying them of a downgrade of France, which has a top-flight AAA rating, sparking short-lived havoc in the markets before S&P sent out a correction.

“The system mistakenly interpreted this change as a ‘downgrade’ and triggered a message to a limited number of subscribers who had signed up to receive e-mail alerts,” S&P said.

S&P has since reiterated France’s rating of “AAA/A-1+’ with a stable outlook.”

So, again, a generic programming mistake affecting only one country. And the downgrade came at just when the markets were rebounding at the news that Greece and Italy were fixing their problems,…

Did someone again, bet the wrong way?

One time could be an accident. But twice?

The supposed mistake contributed to the worst day for France’s government bonds since before the euro was launched in 1999.

Hmmmmm, now if someone just happened to KNOW this was going to happen…. Hmmmmm…

(Remember: It’s been twice.)

When countries start having their entire investment futures controlled by someone in the top 1%, it is probably time to begin changing the rules affecting that 1%… Don’t you think?

Raining Fire In The City

London is ablaze. Rioting.

Why?

Cuts to their budget, just like the ones we are about to do to ours….

The only reason Americans haven’t rioted so far, is because of Obama and the Democrats insistence that Federal money is being spent as part of the stimulus plan…

In Greece, Israel, and now London, Liverpool, and Birmingham, people have been without…

Which as I said above, is exactly where we soon will be…

Not to sound callous, but perhaps one must consider the British deserve it? Likewise so will we if we too follow through with austerity cuts as did all these countries that have been rioting…

In every case, austerity cuts are the instigator….

Now austerity cuts, are really a stupid way out of a budget mess.

When you get to where your expenses are greater than your revenue stream, there are two ways to solve it… One, lower expenses so they match the revenue stream; two, raise the revenue stream so it matches the expenses… Best if you do both…

Where they failed in these nations, was to tax the wealthiest to pay for these necessary programs… Just in the numbers alone it makes so much more sense if you have to piss off someone to piss of the one percent at the top,…. than piss of the 99 percent on the bottom…..

“Hey, lets give whatever the “one-percenter” asks for.. just give it to him, and what ever it is he wants, we will take it out of the little the 99% have to fight over on the bottom…. ”

So Britain did that, and now they’ve got 99% of the population mad enough to riot, and there is only 1% with any resolve to stop them…

On the other hand, if they had taxed the wealthiest one percent (just for the sake of illustration) everything he had…. he’d be pissed. But 99% percent of the population would have jobs, would buy cars again, pay rent on time, would go out to eat, would shop to refurnish their house… 99% of the population would have jobs…..

So when the one wealthy per center, strode into the poor sections of town, and began throwing firebombs at the 5 And 10 Cent Store… 99% of the populations would descend on him, and nip his riot in the bud… “Uhh, no, you ain’t doing that here…”

So from hell it appears this notion came from, that we have to cater to the top 1% …. no, we don’t; we should be catering to the 99% of those on the bottom…. What they need, and therefore, what we need, … is to raise taxes just a tiny bit, up to 40% on the top marginal rate… and re tax capital gains, up to 40%…

Pretty soon, everyone will be too busy working to even think about throwing a firebomb through a store front window…..

Bad Standards and Poors Track Records…

Standard and Poors insisted the derivitives that crashed the global economy were AAA+ and perfectly safe….

Standard and Poors justified that the savings of 2.1 trillion needed to be over the 4 trillion level in order to keep America’s rating at AAA+..

Standard and Poors made a two trillion dollar error, using the wrong baseline. When pointed out, that the savings would be over the 4 trillion dollars level they originally based their judgment upon, Standard and Poors, said the 2 trillion was insignificant, and downgraded anyway….

Standard and Poors said that America’s Treasuries are less safe…

Investors world wide are buying up US Treasuries, at times, even paying a premium to own them, over the supposedly safer AAA+ rated bonds of Germany, Norway, Australia, and Switzerland.

Standard and Poors…

1) Wrong
2) Wrong
3) Wrong
4) Wrong

Four wrongs don’t make a right… They do make the “right” a laughingstock, though……

New Rating For Standard & Poors: FFF-

Standard and Poors downgraded America’s rating because it miscalculated the deficit by using the wrong baseline… The future deficit was actually within the target they themselves had previously set…

FAIL

Standard and Poors chose to ignore their error, and downgrade the debt anyway. They cited an impossible gridlock in Washington in which nothing could get done… Uhh, hello? I believe a compromise debt ceiling bill was passed and signed by the president… Yes, of course there was posturing. But an agreement did get signed……

FAIL

Third, since their downgrade, investors have flocked to Treasuries, dropping their yield ( a good thing) simply because they are a good thing… Apparently when it comes to their own money, investors can see the US is still the safest place to keep one’s money….much, much, more safer than the AAA+ of Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and Australia. …. Huge miscalculation on the part of Standard and Poors… Again.

FAIL

Three major FAILS? Standard and Poors is now rated FFF-.. one for each FAIL….

Time to change their name to Poor Standards….

Irony: The Lower The Rating, The More Valued Treasury Bonds Become

Investors haven’t stopped buying T-notes lately… Just take a look at Friday’s news that the 10-year Treasury yield dropped by the largest amount in one week since 2009. In the last month alone, yields on the 10-year note has plummeted from 3.2% to a bit over 2.3%.

If folks were shunning Treasuries then the government would have to entice investors with bigger yields to offset the perception of bigger risks.

But because of the downgrade, the bigger risks are in the stock market… The markets have lost 11 percentage points in eleven days… Ever since Republicans walked away from the $4 Trillion Deal… (it had a tax increase)….

So, by rating the Treasury Bonds as unsafe investments, Standard and Poor’s made them the safest investment out there…

Go figure.. Obviously Mr. Beers, (head of Standard and Poors) is just a two bit player… Boy, that outfit sure called it wrong.. now 3 times!…..

Standard and Poors: On The Take?

Late Friday afternoon, as books were being closed all over the financial world for the upcoming weekend, one of the last great ones of summer, Standard and Poors dropped the Federal Government’s bond rating from AAA+ to AA+…….

Moody’s and Fitch’s, the other two bond rating institutions, did not…

Weird…………………………………………….

Here is their explanation as to why…..

S&P has said their decision to downgrade the U.S. was based in part on the fact that the Budget Control Act, which will reduce projected deficits by more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years, fell short of their $4 trillion expectation for deficit reduction.

They let the Treasury know before announcing (even though word was leaked during the day’s stock trading…)

The Treasury responded with an…..” Uh, it looks here like you made a $2 Trillion math error…” Once corrected there is a $4 Trillion savings in this bill…. ”

Standard and Poor’s, sheepishly caught in their miscalculation, responded, “Oh, did you say only two trillion? That’s nothing; we’re keeping the bond rating as it is….”

So Standard and Poors thinks the amount of $2 Trillion is significant enough to destroy faith in the US Government.. and drop our rating from AAA+ to AA+ ….. but when they make a $2 trillion math error, a very basic one at that, it is not significant enough to change it back….

Obviously they have another reason for dropping the rating that has nothing to do with the reality of economics or politics… Usually when something like this happens, it means someone is on the take…..

How could they make such an error…

Specifically, CBO calculated that the Budget Control Act, including its discretionary caps, would save $2.1 trillion relative to a “baseline” in which current discretionary funding levels grow with inflation. S&P incorrectly added that same $2.1 trillion in deficit reduction to an entirely different “baseline” where discretionary funding levels grow with nominal GDP over the next 10 years. Relative to this alternative “baseline,” the Budget Control Act will save more than $4 trillion over ten years – or over $2 trillion more than S&P calculated. (The baseline in which discretionary spending grows with nominal GDP is substantially higher because CBO assumes that nominal GDP grows by just under 5 percent a year on average, while inflation is around 2.5 percent a year on average.

The impact of this mistake was to dramatically overstate projected deficits—by $2 trillion over 10 years…..

S&P did not believe a mistake of this magnitude was significant enough to warrant reconsidering their judgment, or even significant enough to warrant another day to carefully re-evaluate their analysis.

They said, “That’s our story and were sticking with it…”

Even though they know it is completely a lie and a bunch of crap.”

The magnitude of this mistake – and the haste with which S&P changed its principal rationale for action when presented with this error – raise fundamental questions about the credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action.

Obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, obviously, Standard and Poor’s is more concerned with their impact on the market, than they are with whether what they say, is true, or not….
They, are the Rupert Murdoch of the bond rating services…..

And So,…. the Downgrade Occurred Anyway…..

Why?

Don’t listen to bull or the finger pointing by piss ants who have no power and so use events to justify their certain slants or beliefs… ..

It’s because the market got surprised by the Labor Figures yesterday and rose….

That wasn’t supposed to happen. The market was supposed to be in the 10000 by close of Friday….

Now, a little extra push is needed to make it reverse direction and go that way, and S&P is the entity in charge of executing that task.

If it doesn’t go below 10,000 by close of Monday, big money will be lost. Obviously, the closer the DOW is to that level if not below, the smaller and smaller the loss will be to those who sold short……

You see. It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with the economy.

It’s simply betting at a racetrack, ie. one thats run by the mafia…….

Hopefully you listened to me, so it doesn’t matter what the market does…. I mean (and here it is put succinctly), when the mafia puts their money on a horse, that’s one race to gotta get out of…..