Seeing the bleetings on all the drones on Twitter shit me. Well, they do on normal days, but today even more so.
Standards and Poor have reduced their outlook on US Bonds from AAA to AA+
Yes, I have heard you fuckwits yabbering on how S&P (as one of the 3 credit reporting companies) caused the 2008 meltdown by overvaluing derivatives. However, I do argue (fucking awesomely as always) that deriviatives where so complex that sophisticated computer modelling was required to explain this, so S&P could have been sucked in like most of the other US financial clowns who did not handle 5 dimensional mathematics.
Even if they had their dicks in the financial pie of suck, what is happening here is partly the 2008 debarcle, part long term issues, and partly complete ineptude of the cock sucking Republican Party.
Firstly, long term. That debt ceiling? It was implemented in 1917 as a way to conning the sceptical US public that the US would not bankrupt itself fighting an unpopular European war. There is no need to it, provision of debt should be part of the budget process. However, even then, the US is covered in shit, as they have been unable to pass a budget for 2 years now. They cant even fund the fucking FAA! I lost my first fucking ministary because Gough could not guarantee supply (that is, pass a fucking budget). You can not sack the congress, because of fixed terms and the inability for the president (or anyone else for that matter) to sack the legislative body if they can not function!
And the debt? Sure some of it is from Obama, but the majority comes from Bush's unfunded tax cuts and funding 2 wars on a credit card. During other wars, the US raised taxes to fund wars, but apparently the thinking up to Obama's election was "Deficits do not matter". Well, small deficits are good things, as they can be used to influence interest rates, but large debts have a life of their own.
And look at the nature of the 2008 and 2011 debarcles. Lightly or unregulated industries start shuffling electrical bits around so rapidly that people do not know (and in many cases do not care) where the paperwork is. In Australia, our regulated banks did not partake in the shenanigans, and they are still the four pillars I set up years ago (admittedly I would like to have more than 4 pillars, but I blame the crisis for fucking THAT one up). And governments in the US has not even begun to work out who is the blame, but instead poured money down their throats to keep them from drowning in shit.
And the Grand Old Party? For Fuck Sake, some taxation is needed. The US tax base is so riddled with loopholes, rebates and perks that you might as well not bother. Yet a lot of the blame for the debt is that REPUBLICANS introduce new projects (tax cuts, Homeland Security) without even bothering to even fund them. And don't forget those wars, where where not even budgeted and was only visible when Obama unhid them.
With all these issues, the US is not a stable and safe place to invest in. Revenue is less than expenditure, no budget to map how and why to spend the money, the inability to raise taxes to any sane level needed during wartime, need I go on.
So S&P over rated derivatives. Even if they where clean as snow, any idiot can see that there is a risk to the trillions of bonds currently flooding the world. I would have downgraded the rating of the US years ago. I would not want to have my money tied up in a government that can not get its shit together, and who's finical system has not been held to account for fucking the world over.
And the scary thing, you and I have some of our money in US Bonds. Because they where the panic room of the world economy. The place to go (along with gold, which makes our economy look good) when the shit hits the fan. Your super probably is partially in bonds. So it affects you. And they will not listen to you to fix their problems.
Because the people in power are not listening to the grown-ups saying to them to harden the fuck up.
