S&P Seen Surrendering to Tea Party

[theVOID]

BLOOMBERG By Zeke Faux - Aug 8, 2011

Standard & Poor’s, the rating company that downgraded the debt of the United States to AA+ from AAA for the first time, now finds itself assailed by investors led by billionaire Warren Buffett for making a political decision that has more to do with Tea Party politics than the financial stability of the U.S.

S&P officials, shrugging off a $2 trillion calculation error, blamed “uncertainty” in the policymaking process on Aug. 5 when they cut the assessment of the U.S. government’s ability to pay its debt, citing Congress’s failure to agree on as much long-term deficit reduction as the credit-rating company wanted. Buffett, the world’s most successful investor, said S&P erred and the U.S. should be rated “quadruple-A.”

I notice you've ignored the quotes from other people who had a contrary opinion in that very same article... “I think S&P has demonstrated some spine; they finally got it right,” Bill Gross, the manager of the world’s biggest bond fund and co-chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co"

Krugman almost get's it right; "“There is no reason to take Friday’s downgrade of America seriously,” Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said in a New York Times column. “These are the last people whose judgment we should trust.”" Considering these morons had sub-prime loans rated AAA I'd say they have almost no credibility, then again, if this is a measure of their credibility the Fed and US govt has no credibility either, they completely missed it too, Bernanke was insisting that the sub-prime mortgages weren't a problem right up until the collapse... By this standard you'd suspect they'd be listening to the people who did warn against the bogus ratings like Schiff.... Nope.

Also, shouldn't the credibility of the two equally bad rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch also be questioned? After all, they got it just as wrong as S&P during the crisis yet nobody is doubting their AAA rating... If anything these agencies have a history of drastically over-rating credit, not under rating it. It's rather clearly a case of the US doubting the credibility of ratings agencies only when they say something they don't want to hear...

Saying the USA should have the highest possible rating is by any standard absurd, it has to be a relative measure of the probability of a country paying it's debts and at the moment there are more secure nations elsewhere, making the US an "AAAA" rating should in turn make Australia an "AAAAAA" rated country - The fact Buffet suggests the US should have a non-existent rating is also bizarre - Oh, wait, no it isn't, he owns Moody's! Bashing S&P while ignoring the same failings of his own company makes him $$$ - Oh, and his Birkshire firm was recently downgraded too...

The article also has some pretty egregious errors; "The U.K., with a debt estimated at 80 percent of GDP this year, or 6 percentage points higher than the U.S" - This is entirely disingenuous, they are comparing the Gross debt of the UK with the public debt of the USA, a valid comparison would be 80% UK vs 106% USA.

Also, it's abundantly clear that the major reason for the US retaining anything like a AA credit rating is their currencies status of global reserve - "They can just print money and devalue the dollar to pay off the debts, as Greenspan says "Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve: “Very much so. This is not an issue of credit rating, the United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So, there is zero probability of default.”" - That's right folks, they're going to devalue your wages and savings via Quantitative easing, transferring wealth into banks to buy treasuries...

And China has a lower credit rating? That strikes me as ridiculous... They are in a much better fiscal position, their debt to GDP is 19% and shrinking rapidly... I would rate their chances of paying back debt as far better, yet they have a AA- rating...

S & P was front and center rating these subprime mortgage derivative as AAA in order to make them acceptable to pension funds. What is needed is to stand a couple of them up against a wall and shoot them just to send a message to the other republicolibertarianazi cocksuckers.

But Buffet gets off the hook, right? If you're going to line up and shoot people he should be, after all his company was equally responsible for giving shitty securities a AAA rating.