The Tea Party downgrade

[briansd1]

[quote=eavesdropper]
We really don’t have a two-party (Republican-Democrat) Congress anymore. What we have is a two-goal Congress. It’s those that want to be elected to Congress in perpetuity versus those who want to work hard, compromising with others, to address the problems that threaten our very existence as a nation. Unfortunately, the latter group is far outnumbered by the first. If this country’s citizenry do not stop taking their direction from ill-informed bloggers, hate-filled media personalities, and plastic empty-headed power-hungry politicians, and make the time to research the truth on their own, they will lose the right to do so.[/quote]

I agree eavesdropper.

As you’ve said before, we need to bring back the smart people and elect politicians who will listen to the experts who spend whole careers studying the issues.

In the mean time, how do we get rid of the “ill-informed bloggers, hate-filled media personalities, and plastic empty-headed power-hungry politicians?”

You’ve mentioned Elizabeth Warren before. How we get more people like her appointed to influential positions and running for elected office?

[eavesdropper]

[quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

You have to look at this S&P downgrade in the context of their rating criteria.

Why is S&P rating us lower now than in the past? The big difference is the Tea Party.

France, Germany, the UK and a host of other countries have AAA ratings. They don’t have Tea Parties. Well, the Brits hold nice tea parties, but they always did.[/quote]

Do you really believe that brian, seriously? For 4+ years we have been racking up HUGE deficits. In the last six months the tea party gets a very limited amount of power in congress and with the repubs, there is finally some debate about the wisdom of these deficits. Cuts (reductions in increases) are agreed upon because of the tea party shifting the debate, and therefore, the downgrade is the fault of the tea party? The Tea Party is the first bloc to make a stride in this fashion in the last 10 years, and the downgrade is their fault?

That makes less than no sense.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

You have to look at this S&P downgrade in the context of their rating criteria.

Why is S&P rating us lower now than in the past? The big difference is the Tea Party.

France, Germany, the UK and a host of other countries have AAA ratings. They don’t have Tea Parties. Well, the Brits hold nice tea parties, but they always did.[/quote]

Do you really believe that brian, seriously? For 4+ years we have been racking up HUGE deficits. In the last six months the tea party gets a very limited amount of power in congress and with the repubs, there is finally some debate about the wisdom of these deficits. Cuts (reductions in increases) are agreed upon because of the tea party shifting the debate, and therefore, the downgrade is the fault of the tea party? The Tea Party is the first bloc to make a stride in this fashion in the last 10 years, and the downgrade is their fault?

That makes less than no sense.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

You have to look at this S&P downgrade in the context of their rating criteria.

Why is S&P rating us lower now than in the past? The big difference is the Tea Party.

France, Germany, the UK and a host of other countries have AAA ratings. They don’t have Tea Parties. Well, the Brits hold nice tea parties, but they always did.[/quote]

Do you really believe that brian, seriously? For 4+ years we have been racking up HUGE deficits. In the last six months the tea party gets a very limited amount of power in congress and with the repubs, there is finally some debate about the wisdom of these deficits. Cuts (reductions in increases) are agreed upon because of the tea party shifting the debate, and therefore, the downgrade is the fault of the tea party? The Tea Party is the first bloc to make a stride in this fashion in the last 10 years, and the downgrade is their fault?

That makes less than no sense.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

You have to look at this S&P downgrade in the context of their rating criteria.

Why is S&P rating us lower now than in the past? The big difference is the Tea Party.

France, Germany, the UK and a host of other countries have AAA ratings. They don’t have Tea Parties. Well, the Brits hold nice tea parties, but they always did.[/quote]

Do you really believe that brian, seriously? For 4+ years we have been racking up HUGE deficits. In the last six months the tea party gets a very limited amount of power in congress and with the repubs, there is finally some debate about the wisdom of these deficits. Cuts (reductions in increases) are agreed upon because of the tea party shifting the debate, and therefore, the downgrade is the fault of the tea party? The Tea Party is the first bloc to make a stride in this fashion in the last 10 years, and the downgrade is their fault?

That makes less than no sense.

[jstoesz]

[quote=briansd1][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

You have to look at this S&P downgrade in the context of their rating criteria.

Why is S&P rating us lower now than in the past? The big difference is the Tea Party.

France, Germany, the UK and a host of other countries have AAA ratings. They don’t have Tea Parties. Well, the Brits hold nice tea parties, but they always did.[/quote]

Do you really believe that brian, seriously? For 4+ years we have been racking up HUGE deficits. In the last six months the tea party gets a very limited amount of power in congress and with the repubs, there is finally some debate about the wisdom of these deficits. Cuts (reductions in increases) are agreed upon because of the tea party shifting the debate, and therefore, the downgrade is the fault of the tea party? The Tea Party is the first bloc to make a stride in this fashion in the last 10 years, and the downgrade is their fault?

That makes less than no sense.

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.[/quote]

Eaves, I totally agree.

The fact that they were touting Lehman right to the end shows you how reliable they are. The fact that they downgraded treasuries first, and Fannie second shows how backward their thinking. Like we would screw treasury holders before stiffing fannie bond holders is asinine. Maybe they were timing their press releases in reverse order:)

S&P and all the other ratings agencies are merely representative of the markets already concluded position. That is why everything was peachy king until 08 despite the obvious suck of the fundamentals, and that is why treasuries are rallying today…no body gives a damn what S&P has to say. Our first quarter GDP was .4% and everyone is insolvent.

Bombs away!

Edit: France and the UK have AAA…explain that to me…

Maybe it is that they don’t have a tea party (tongue in cheek)

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.[/quote]

Eaves, I totally agree.

The fact that they were touting Lehman right to the end shows you how reliable they are. The fact that they downgraded treasuries first, and Fannie second shows how backward their thinking. Like we would screw treasury holders before stiffing fannie bond holders is asinine. Maybe they were timing their press releases in reverse order:)

S&P and all the other ratings agencies are merely representative of the markets already concluded position. That is why everything was peachy king until 08 despite the obvious suck of the fundamentals, and that is why treasuries are rallying today…no body gives a damn what S&P has to say. Our first quarter GDP was .4% and everyone is insolvent.

Bombs away!

Edit: France and the UK have AAA…explain that to me…

Maybe it is that they don’t have a tea party (tongue in cheek)

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.[/quote]

Eaves, I totally agree.

The fact that they were touting Lehman right to the end shows you how reliable they are. The fact that they downgraded treasuries first, and Fannie second shows how backward their thinking. Like we would screw treasury holders before stiffing fannie bond holders is asinine. Maybe they were timing their press releases in reverse order:)

S&P and all the other ratings agencies are merely representative of the markets already concluded position. That is why everything was peachy king until 08 despite the obvious suck of the fundamentals, and that is why treasuries are rallying today…no body gives a damn what S&P has to say. Our first quarter GDP was .4% and everyone is insolvent.

Bombs away!

Edit: France and the UK have AAA…explain that to me…

Maybe it is that they don’t have a tea party (tongue in cheek)

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]I resent the title of this post. It is beyond stupid to lay the blame of the downgrade on the tea party. Now you could easily call it the repub/dem downgrade.[/quote]

I call it what it is: “The S & P Downgrade”. A decision made by a company with, as far as I’m concerned, no credibility. And a decision made with NO concern for their investor clients, as they’ve tried to claim. And a decision made with what was apparently a total lack of even superficially critical thought.

However, S & P is entitled to make its own decisions, and act upon them. The issue I have is with those who are trusting the experience and intellectual capital that is supposedly behind the decision to downgrade. After the mortgage bond ratings debacle, why would ANYONE trust in the abilities of S & P? Their actions (along with other ratings agencies) were a key factor in a financial meltdown that brought the financial system of the United States (and many other nations as well) to its knees.

The fact that greed was the motivating factor in S & P’s decision to award AAA+ ratings to junk mortgage bonds should have been a trigger for mass customer defection, putting them out of business. After all, when the product you are selling is expertise as verified by client trust, and you intentionally and single-mindedly decide to violate that trust, what do you have left to sell? But S & P’s inability to predict the disastrous fallout of its decision to assure its clients of the safety of the mortgage bonds demonstrated that, with or without a moral compass, they lacked the basic intelligence desirable in a company that sells investment advice.

No, I blame S & P for making the decision to downgrade, but that was their prerogative. However, I have a major issue with all the idiots out there who, despite clear cut evidence to the contrary, still obviously see S & P as a trustworthy source of investment advice, as evidenced by their panicked reaction to the downgrade. It’s not S & P’s decision that is creating the problem. It’s the REACTION of the so-called financial experts (institutional and government) to a decision made by a morally and intellectually bankrupt company, who once again has made a decision carrying long-term potentially disastrous world-wide consequences with absolutely no thought given to them. And I blame our government for providing special privileges to S & P, not only in relieving them of responsibility for the execution of prior disastrous decisions, but also for allowing them to continue to pose a danger of making more of them.[/quote]

Eaves, I totally agree.

The fact that they were touting Lehman right to the end shows you how reliable they are. The fact that they downgraded treasuries first, and Fannie second shows how backward their thinking. Like we would screw treasury holders before stiffing fannie bond holders is asinine. Maybe they were timing their press releases in reverse order:)

S&P and all the other ratings agencies are merely representative of the markets already concluded position. That is why everything was peachy king until 08 despite the obvious suck of the fundamentals, and that is why treasuries are rallying today…no body gives a damn what S&P has to say. Our first quarter GDP was .4% and everyone is insolvent.

Bombs away!

Edit: France and the UK have AAA…explain that to me…

Maybe it is that they don’t have a tea party (tongue in cheek)

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