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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (623202)	8/6/2011 4:58:43 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1579162

You're LYING Dave.

To: i-node who wrote (623202)	8/6/2011 7:04:10 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579162

When you tell the truth, we can talk.

To: i-node who wrote (623202)	8/6/2011 7:10:34 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1579162

You were warned what would happen with all the screwing around..........but your leaders treated it like it was a joke. You all tell so many lies you no longer can discern the difference between truth and fiction. And you are taking the rest of down with you. S&P defends US downgrade, cites political gridlock WASHINGTON—Standard & Poor’s on Saturday defended its downgrade of the US long-term credit rating, and blamed the move on Washington’s political gridlock on fiscal policy. The US Treasury had lashed out at the S&P’s decision on Friday to downgrade its top-notch triple-A rating to AA+, with an official saying there was a “$2 trillion error” because the credit ratings agency used the wrong baseline. But David Beers, S&P’s global head of sovereign ratings, said the acrimonious debate between Democrats and Republicans over reining in US debt “highlighted a degree of uncertainty around the political policymaking process which we think is incompatible with the triple-A rating.” “I think it’s safe to say that the nature of the debate and the difficulty in framing a political consensus about how to make fiscal policy choices were the key considerations,” he told reporters on a conference call. John Chambers, chairman of the S&P sovereign ratings committee, also defended the decision, saying the agency used baselines from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. “We were looking for a consistent bench-line and also nonpartisan work,” he told reporters on the same conference call. “The issue here remains that the starting point of the US debt load at a federal, state and local level is high,” he added, referring to the staggering US public debt that has surpassed $14 trillion. “We think compared to some other very highly rated governments, the US government does not have the same proactive ability to achieve long-term solutions to put public finances on a firm footing.” The debt deal finally reached on Tuesday calls for $917 billion in cuts over 10 years, but also mandates an as-yet unnamed congressional panel to come up with another $1.5 trillion in cuts by the end of the year. That fell short of what S&P has been saying would merit retaining the AAA rating: $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years that includes both cuts and revenue increases, which Republicans have refused to accept. “Although the Budget Control Act does take some steps on discretionary spending, where the real action is in terms of long-term savings is on entitlements,” Chambers said, referring to health and pensions programs. “You’re going to need, eventually, some action on entitlements, either by changing the parameters of the programs or by raising additional revenue to pay for those programs.”

To: i-node who wrote (623202)	8/7/2011 9:24:38 AM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1579162

Let's be clear about exactly what happened in the process of our credit rating downgrade alternet.org. Republican Ideology, Not Obama, Ruined our Credit Rating Remember when the president suddenly offered the Republicans a grand bargain on deficit reduction and put entitlements on the table if the Republicans would only consider eliminating tax loopholes for private jet owners and other millionaires? Remember how so many progressives howled about the betrayal? Imagine what the world would like today if the president had not taken that step................... .......The downgrade from S&P has been brewing for months. S&P's sovereign debt team, led by company veteran David T. Beers, had grown increasingly skeptical that Washington policy makers would make significant progress in reducing the deficit, given the tortured talks over raising the debt ceiling. In recent warnings, the company said Washington should strive to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, suggesting anything less would be insufficient. Negotiations to reach that threshold collapsed, and political leaders instead agreed to a last-second deal to cut the deficit by between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion, making a downgrade almost unavoidable. When the $4 trillion deal fell apart, some Obama administration officials immediately warned that a downgrade from S&P was a real possibility. You have probably been subjected to an endless litany from progressives that this was all a fake crisis and that we don't really have a debt problem. That was never true. We do have a debt problem. We have a debt problem because Standard & Poor has come to the conclusion that we'll never be able to raise revenues. The Republicans' ideology has ruined our credit rating. The president could have been blamed for this downgrade if he hadn't shown a willingness to put entitlements on the table. In that case, both sides would be equally to blame. But the president wisely took the necessary action to protect our credit rating, and he was rebuffed when Eric Cantor and then John Boehner walked out of the negotiations.