Well Obamabots we are at the end of another week! In retrospect, what is the prognosis for this week that was?
Well there was some good: the recalls in Wisconsin where two Repugs were knocked off, and though much less sung, in NH the Democrats had their 2nd successful recall this year.
There was the bad: the S&P downgrade of are credit rating and then our bonds set the table for an ugly week on Wall Street where equities lost 450 points.
Then there was the just plain ugly, namely, Kathy Nickolaus deciding another election for the Wisconsin GOP.
Certainly we should not be hanging our heads with the successful recalls-and more on the way. Anytime you see a headline that "wonders" whether or not we're going to go on with the recall effort against Walker you know this is just spin-the idea that we "lost" despite getting an unprecedented 6 GOP state senators and defeating two of them let alone what went wholly undiscussed on NH.
Still, there should be a few investigations. For one thing a real investigation is needed for S&P to figure out just what was it's rationale-the bond market "despite" the downgrade had it's best week since 2008.
Some have even declared there should be arrests. Whether or not that's necessary there should be a real investigation and not just a debate society where S&P understands that it's very place in the financial system is threatened if it doesn't give ready answers.
The question remains what rationale the rating agencies have at all; S&P most of all as unlike Moody and Fitch, went out on a limb and downgraded US debt for the first time in the modern-post WWII-era.
Moody's on the other hand deserves credit at least for arguing that we don;t need the debt limit at all that all it does is inject chronic uncertainty into the market.
I'll say this for S&P: as much as they need to give us answers part of their rationale for cutting the rating at least makes sense. They argue that after the Republicans were able to play such a successful game of debt ceiling chicken, in the future there is more uncertainty if we have to go through this ever time we need to raise our debt.
In addition, they went as far as saying that if the Bush tax cuts were ended they'd return the triple AAA rating,. The Bush tax cuts are the single worst piece of legislation in modern (economic) times(modern defined as post Hoover).
http://ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2011/08/sp_report_cites_bush_tax_cuts.php
Until you fully appreciate how (radically) bad they were you won't being to grasp why we are currently in such dismal fiscal shape. I have always understood this on some level, but reading Paul Krugman's "The Great Unravelling" has crystallized this point and helped me better understand how true this really is. Krugman does yeoman's work here.
For this reason when I finish of this weekly summation I am gonna put together a piece on the Bush tax cuts. I don't agree with S&P's solution but some of what they have said are right: that if the bush tax cuts are not allowed to expire(and S&P assumes they won't which is a major reason for downgrade) our fiscal house will not be a pretty picture for the foreseeable future.
In summation it was a week of the bad and the ugly-S&P downgrade was the bad, Kathy Nickolaus getting to announce a GOP win yet again was the ugly.
Both S&P and Kathy Nickolaus need to be investigated. S&P needs to understand that if it can't give us some real answers to explain it's actions and legitimize their function maybe they should no longer be allowed to exist or at least have the authority they currently enjoy.
Kathy Nickolaus' part in Tuesday's election needs to be examined. There should be a recount or some kind of audit to make sure her county was handled entirely above board
If anyone has any info on either of these issues they are certainly welcome to provide it.
Overall there is some hope based on what we achieved in Wisconsin.
But there is certainly work to be done. As a friend just put it, "we the ppl better start doing something fast be4 its toooo late & we dont have anything." I am quoting them here as I can't put it better myself.
Look for my next post on the Bush tax cuts-their importance in the current fiscal house of ruins we're in right now can't be overstated.
Shelly here again. I too think S&P should be investigated. The reasons they gave were a compendium of things. Their actions over the past several years really need to be examined closely, starting with their approval of Massachusetts’s triple A credit rating when Romney was Governor because he supposedly begged them for it with an agreement to raise taxes up to their saying that the political posturing in Washington was their reason for the down grade. Hidden in all the layers is the accusation that they did it to thumb their nose at Wall Street for a possible SEC investigation of giving good ratings to the banks that brought the housing collapse on. Whatever the reason, they need to be investigated because their actions seem unethical and questionable. Also it is good to clear up the mess so it doesn’t become a tool during election season for the GOP. We know they’ll spin it to appear that it is the president’s fault and their faithful will believe it and repeat it. We know where that will lead us to; an unwarranted condemnation of the president and democrats in general.
ReplyDeleteOf course you know how I feel about the recall elections here in Wisconsin. They were a victory of no small import no matter what the spin doctors say. It’s just the beginning, Governor Walker is next whether he likes it or not. No amount of appearing on Morning Joe sounding conciliatory and willing to reach across the aisle now is going to save him, because he won’t undo the damage he has thus far done to our state. He still assumes that he has done the right thing with his “budget repair” bill. If the media would have bothered to look into it, they would have found that we did NOT have a shortfall but were on track to have a surplus at the end of our budget year! But as soon as he got into office he offered tax breaks to new businesses. Let me rephrase that, he told new businesses they could open shop in Wisconsin and not pay ANY taxes for the first three years here, and that was just the beginning. So he actually created the shortfall in a small amount of time. Jim Doyle was what you would have called electrifying as a governor, but he did a lot of good things for the people of Wisconsin and Mr. Walker is working tirelessly to eradicate them.
As I just read your piece on tax cuts, I’ll just say this, I have never minded paying my taxes because I knew it was going to help people I knew, or didn’t know as the case may be. If it meant that our youth, not just my kids, but all kids, were going to receive a good education, I had no problem with it. The same for any of the other things that our tax dollars go towards; better air to breathe, clean water to drink, beautiful national parks to visit, etc. My family benefited from the Affordable Health Care Act. (I hate when it’s called Obamacare!) Both my adult children had jobs that did not provide healthcare benefits so we were able to add them back onto our family plan through my husband’s employer. Which we pay $276.00 a month for family coverage that covers no matter how big the family is that is collecting. (I shudder to think what we’d pay or how good it would be without a union to help negotiate at his place of employment.) Too bad it wasn’t sooner as our daughter had some medical issues that she now has to pay for because she didn’t have the healthcare to help with those costs. Taxes are necessary for the improvement of the lives of the citizens and the country overall. The only time I hate paying taxes, is when they’re paying congress who do not do what we the people have told them we want.