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Ear to the Ground

U.S. Slapped With ‘Negative’ Credit Outlook

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Posted on Apr 18, 2011
White House / Pete Souza

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner meets with President Barack Obama while Larry Summers, the White House’s former top economic adviser, lurks in the background.

Standard & Poor’s, one of those ratings agencies that made a living signing off on toxic assets, has once again thrust itself into the spotlight by downgrading Uncle Sam’s credit outlook from “stable” to “negative.” As a consolation prize, S&P let us keep our AAA rating.  —PZS

New York Times:

Many analysts were surprised by the market response to the revision, which cut the long-term United States debt rating to negative from stable. The S.&P. also affirmed the government’s AAA rating.

“The idea that the U.S. public finances are on an unsustainable trajectory is hardly new news,” economists from Capital Economics said in a research note. “Indeed, we warned that the U.S. might be downgraded, or at least put on negative watch, as far back as nearly two years ago.”

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By Hal (GT), April 19, 2011 at 11:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I do agree with SteveL on the fact that we should
consider the source and their history. However, I think
we should also consider the reality we find ourselves
in with the massive printing of fiat currency and
attempts by the fed to prop up the stock markets and
save the “too big to fail” banks. All that says to me
that we have a long way to go in recovering. In other
words, we’re still on the edge.

Report this
prisnersdilema's avatar

By prisnersdilema, April 19, 2011 at 10:21 am Link to this comment

“Rest in pieces US of A!”... “Maybe we can still save something of value by expelling the confederacy and any other of the states that have succombed to the disease of reactionary ignorance! “..

Bravo!

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By SteveL, April 18, 2011 at 11:16 pm Link to this comment

These are the same jokers that AAA rated the mortgage bundles that blew up.  The market was so impressed with this, that the yields on long term U.S. securities hardly moved.  Nice try.

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By Mussolini, April 18, 2011 at 10:09 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Make no mistake about it: Federal Reserve Chairman
Bernanke has been deflating the dollar to benefit his
bankster buddies, while the rest of the U.S. and
world pay extortion money to these shakedown artists.
While I do not support Congressman Ron Paul, I agree
with him when said: “There is something fishy about
the head of the world’s most powerful government
bureaucracy, one that is involved in a full-time
counterfeiting operation to sustain monopolistic
financial cartels, and the world’s most powerful
central planner, who sets the price of money
worldwide, proclaiming the glories of capitalism.”

Bernanke, the current U.S. presidential
administration, and most of congress are making it so
that your grandchildren will be beggars, while their
grandchildren will live in McMansions. What are you
going to do about it? For starters, vote for anyone
who loudly will stand up the bankster cartel. In
short, throw the bums out with your vote.

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By Igloo, April 18, 2011 at 10:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

For too long we believed the US was too big to fail; that somehow things would work out. Well, guess what, failure is right around the corner and so is social unrest. Unless drastic measures are taken to cut the debt, look at the country collapsing into a Weimar Republic of continental proportions, where a loaf of bread can be bought with a basket full of dollars, followed by a right wing dictatorship run by neo-nazis (an offshoot of the Tea Party) who will do anything to prevent the corporate state from falling apart.

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By berniem, April 18, 2011 at 6:37 pm Link to this comment

The empire is on the wane and the rats are gathering up their cheese for immediate emigration to a suitable tax haven that also has no extradition treaty with exceptionally fading giant! Rest in pieces US of A! Maybe we can still save something of value by expelling the confederacy and any other of the states that have succombed to the disease of reactionary ignorance!

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