It's an Everybody Understands But Washington Thing

Dear America,

"All Americans, 

both beltway politicians and those on Main Street, 

have to do some serious soul-searching 

to bring their country back 

from a potential financial abyss"  

-- Xinhuanet.com -- 

This from China's leading on line news website, a site ranking "around 160th on its [U.S. based, Alexa website ranking system] list of 108 million global websites. Its ranking places Xinhuanet third among the world's news websites, narrowly trailing BBC and CNN, but far ahead of Reuters, The Associated Press and AFP (Agence France-Presse)."  To read the complete article from China's view, go here.
  
Now, what America finds newsworthy and the reasons why may be for entirely different reasons -- or is it motives...


 On CBS Face the Nation, presidential advisor David Axelrod summed it up like so:

 “The tea party brought us to the brink of default... It was something that should never have happened that clearly is on the backs of those who were willing the see the country default, those very strident voices in the tea party...This is essentially a tea-party downgrade.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Axelrod: Tea Party to Blame for S&P Move
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Oh Axelrod, do you really think we are that stupid?  Washington has been operating without a budget -- let alone a fiscally responsible one -- going on TWO years now.  hello...don't even get me started on the unbridled spending sprees of the last hundred years.

And the White House, which decidedly went into immediate modus discreditus of the credit rating downgrade, citing that the findings and following decision making by the S&P to essentially lower America's credit rating was entirely based on bad math. 

Here's more from Axelrod:

“We can debate the strength of the analysis they did...They made an egregious error here, but theirs was largely a political analysis, and that is what we should focus on.”

and a statement from Geithner:

so little Timmy said, oh right, in April...that there was absolutely "no risk" -- none, nada, zippo -- he assured us that the United States of America would NOT lose it's AAA credit rating.  He promised the world that reforms would magically appear and be put in place to remedy the situation without further ado.  Duly noting all the political wrangling, he understood how some people might look upon Washington as a "hard place to read;" but have no fear, he said -- ultimately -- there is no risk to the nation  (if not the entire world); resting America's future upon false promises and empty convictions by letting us believe that Washington would do the right thing.

The S & P has been clear -- even to the extent of being quite specific with the numbers; they wanted to see at least 4 Trillion dollars in debt reduction; they even wanted to have assurances that the road ahead would lead to living within our means (translation: a balanced budget).   And they are just as clear in spelling out the reasons for the downgrade in their statement released to the public, which you can read here.  It's not political; it is a pragmatic understanding that this President, and certainly everyone within his administration, should be entirely grateful.

But this was little Timmy's reply to the S & P (getting a little testy I might add):

"They've handled themselves very poorly. And they've shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math." 

[right, as it was flawed by 2 Trillion dollars]

The S & P makes a number of salient points, one of which:

"Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt burden in a manner consistent with a ‘AAA’ rating and with ‘AAA’ rated sovereign peers (see Sovereign Government Rating Methodology and Assumptions,” June 30, 2011, especially Paragraphs 36-41)"

Basically, without elected officials doing a little "soul searching,"  the chance for America to return to fiscal solvency is slim to none.

China, the country who buys most of our debt, understands this.

The S & P understands this.

With market reaction of the last week telling us everything we ever needed to know, Wall Street understands this.

Main street understands this.

The average Tea Party Patriot understands this.

And you know it girlfriend -- my homegirls at  SMART GIRL POLITICS understands this.

Even the average democrat, republican and independent with half a brain, understands this.

How can Washington NOT understand this and make the structural changes necessary, like, ah yesterday?

The spin on this is a crying shame.  If it weren't for the House, having the 2010 invasion of the Tea Party spirit as according to the people's mandate to change the Washington establishment, who knows where we would be.   The only voice of reason has come from the Tea Party representatives, and a fraction of others who held onto fiscally conservative convictions.

The White House should be praising the Tea Party for holding the line so firm -- even though, we -- those connected to the Tea Party cause and agenda -- all know it wasn't firm enough, now was it?  you know what I'm talkin' about.  The narrative is that the Tea people in general are happy, and that after all is said and done, the freshmen and active Tea Party congressmen were supposedly celebrating a major coup.  Really? Is that so?   In actuality, not so, ah so, the Tea people were are entirely displeased.  You will just have to take my word on that

Over the weekend The Daily Bell took a poll; as I recall, the question went something like this: "What will the S & P downgrade impact be?"  going thru the choices -- a) dollar goes down, gold up b) politicians will heed the warning... c) no one really cares what this mainstream mouthpiece says -- and last, d) pass the popcorn, the show is about to get really crazy.

[Now, just so you know, I quickly went to (d)..not only for the free popcorn, but c'mon, ya just gotta figure this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship or something; I mean, geeze louise, something really great crazy is about to start, it's time to hang onto our hats]

Turns out, at the time of the polling, a) reached about 38% -- b) next to nothing -- c) not much better -- while d) got the most of the vote @ about 49% of the Daily Bell visitors for the day.  It may have changed since, I haven't checked.

But the thing is, we the people are onto something; Washington, not so much.  They wouldn't understand what it meant to keep a meaningful distance from the debt ceiling even if it hit them upside the head.

"Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently."

Washington just doesn't understand.

and given we are on such a downer these days, here's something funny going around --

[picture GWB] 

"know what else Obama 

inherited from Bush...

a 'AAA' credit rating."

Guess mainstream media won't be mentioning that; certainly Xinhuanet.com will be mum just the same.  But the Tea people -- we might just be running on that come 2012.

Time will tell -- and that only works if we have time left.

Word on the street, seconded by Timmy Geithner, is that there is no risk of running out of time.   none, nada, zippo, no way, no how, not under his watch.[and supposedly, the White House is sticking with Timmy for the time being]

Perhaps if we all cross our fingers and do a little soul searching things will all work out in time.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's late -- in preparation for tomorrow, when my girl comes home from vacationing with her dad -- I have made a jump on the day so that I can have more of the day to play.  As it would work out, I am up late enough to see how the market is opening on the other side of the world.  The Asian market opened on a downward slope, at times losing up to 4% -- you can go here for more -- who knows what the morning light will tell us.