I'll give you no argument that the US has problems, including the budget deficit, anemic growth and political gridlock (the blame for the latter, which is clear to me, belongs on a GOP gone batshit crazy, screw that "pox on both houses" BS, though Obama could have handled it better). We can't use government policy to reignite growth because we're at or near a dead end on what fiscal and monetary policy can do. And fixing the deficit will only make the downturn more severe. The S&P downgrade, however, is pretty much irrelevant to me. First, because they are quite simply whores, to put it politely, who have no particular ability to analyze this (or any other) financial situation any better than anyone else. Anyone with half a brain knows what the problems are. And second, because they've totally missed the point - what happened the day after they downgraded the debt? Investors sold equities in order to buy downgraded US government bonds, sending prices through the roof and yields to the floor. Maybe I'm missing something, but one would think a downgrade, if it meant a hill of beans, would result in someone fleeing from the security in question.
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Date: 2011-08-09 06:52 pm (UTC)/rant