Debt Default Skeptics Try To Run From Their Record

[nhboy]

Link to original article.

"Standard & Poors has a specific justification for downgrading the U.S. bond rating, and it's deadly for Republicans. It wasn't just that Congress showed itself to be reckless and dysfunctional, or that the GOP shows no sign of ever ending their anti-tax jihad.

It's that for a period of weeks, some lawmakers (read: Republicans) were quite literally shrugging off the risks of blowing past the August 2 deadline, running out of borrowing authority, and missing payment obligations.

"[P]eople in the political arena were even talking about a potential default," said Joydeep Mukherji, senior directior at S&P. "That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable," he added. "This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns."

This is unambiguous, and leaves little room for obfuscation. S&P's original, lengthy statement explaining the downgrade cited political dysfunction in Congress quite broadly, but did not mention this specific element of the debate.

For weeks, high-profile conservative lawmakers practically welcomed the notion of exhausting the country's borrowing authority, or even technically defaulting. Others brazenly dismissed the risks of doing so.

And for a period of days, in an earlier stage of the debate, Republican leaders said technical default would be an acceptable consequence, if it meant the GOP walked away with massive entitlement cuts in the end.

Of course, that doesn't mean the GOP won't try to sweep the mess they've made down the memory hole. "

 

[aps45819]

keep saying that the people who proposed all the solutions were ones causing the problem

 

[Gilligan]

uh..big no, there nonnoboy. S&P sees that the lib-Dem "don't fix it till its beyond fixable" approach to life was stronger juju than the GOP's will to fix things now..or ever. So they gave us up. Who wouldn't?

You really are not so stupid as to to not understand such a simple proposition..right?

Oh..wait..YOU probably are. Fortunately for the rest of us, you don't vote.

 

[Mongo53]

Low Standards, Poor Judgment

"While many left-of-center pundits and bloggers have flogged the Republicans’ key role (i.e., taking the debt ceiling hostage and refusing to raise taxes even an inch) in the Standard & Poor’s report explaining their historic downgrade of U.S. treasuries from AAA to AA+, what is more telling is that anything S&P says is taken seriously at all. I have little to add on this front to what Digby and Paul Krugman have already said, but a few key points bear repeating:

It was S&P that had Lehman Brothers rated AAA just a month before they went bankrupt.

It was S&P that rated AIG’s credit default swaps as rock solid investments

It was S&P that admitted to making a $2 trillion accounting error (remember, playing with numbers is their core business and reason for being) in advance of the downgrade of U.S. debt."

Why S. & P.’s Ratings Are Substandard and Porous

"Five years ago, if you were an investor looking for guidance on which country’s debt was the safest to invest in, Standard & Poor’s ratings wouldn’t have done much to help you navigate the headwinds of the financial crisis.

Investors now think that Ireland has more than a 40 percent chance of a default or debt restructuring at some point in the next five years. The country is penalized with double-digit interest rates when it wants to borrow money. But in 2006, Standard & Poor’s had Ireland’s debt rated with its top-of-the-line, AAA rating. It didn’t downgrade Ireland until March 30, 2009, long after its financial problems had become obvious, and the price to buy insurance on its debt had increased tenfold from a year earlier.

Spain, which markets now posit has about a three-in-ten chance of default or restructuring, also had a AAA rating, which it maintained until January 2009. Today it still has a AA rating, one notch higher than Japan’s.

Iceland, the tiny country with the oversized banking sector that came perilously close to national bankruptcy, was in 2006 rated AA+, the same rating the United States now has.

Greece, which now appears more likely than not to endure at least a technical default, had debt rated A, lower than most European countries but a reasonably good grade by world standards. It too was not downgraded until January 2009, and its bonds were still rated as investment-grade until March 2010.

Although Standard & Poor’s assigns ratings based on a series of letter grades, they can easily be translated into a numerical scale — sort of like the way that letter grades in high school are translated into a grade-point average:"

First S&P's ratings couldn't be trusted, then they are incompetent, but now the director says something you like, and suddenly they are irrefutable?

A senior director at S&P didn't mention any parties at all, he only said some politicians were talking about default, nor did he characterize in what way they were talking about default.

S&P's Justification stands for itself, as for who was talking about defualt?

Obama: Default would be reckless, irresponsible - Boston.com

Appealing to the nation in a televised address Monday night, Obama said the nation is growing dangerously close to default. He warned that would be what he called a "reckless and irresponsible" outcome to the debate.

The nation will run out of ability to borrow money and pay its existing bills after Aug. 2 if a deal is not reached by then to extend the nation's debt limit...

Geithner Says Damage From Debt Default May Be ‘Irrevocable’ - Businessweek

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said a default arising from failing to raise the debt limit could cause “irrevocable damage” to the economy, risk a “double-dip” recession and increase unemployment.

“Default would not only increase borrowing costs for the federal government, but also for families, businesses and local governments -- reducing investment and job creation throughout the economy,” Geithner said in a letter dated yesterday to Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat....

Senate GOP to Geithner: Default would be your fault - The Hill's On The Money

In a letter sent to Geithner Thursday, the conservative group, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), asserted that the Treasury can avoid a default even after the debt limit is hit. Geithner's repeated claims that the only way to steer clear of a catastrophic default is a debt-limit increase is "irresponsible," they said, and sows "the seeds of doubt in the market regarding the full faith and credit of the United States."

Geithner: Default Jeopardizes 80M Monthly Payments - International Business Times

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated Sunday that if Congress does not raise the U.S. debt ceiling up to 80 million federal payments and checks this month -- including Social Security payments -- will be jeopardized.

What did the original article actually say, NOT what the liberal "talking points" website claim it said:

S&P: Debt default skeptics fueled ratings downgrade - Josh Boak - POLITICO.com

....GOP leadership in the House and Senate was vocal in warning about the dangers of default. But some lawmakers blasted warnings by the Obama administration that a failure to raise the debt ceiling would unleash an economic catastrophe, including Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who voted against the debt limit increase and said the nation would avoid default even without a deal....

...More than 100 House Republicans backed a measure sponsored by McClintock that created a plan if the country failed to raise the debt ceiling - prioritizing debt payments over other obligations.

In the Senate, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) introduced the bill, which he said in a Wall Street Journal editorial could force “sudden and severe” spending cuts.

“Projects would be postponed, some vendor payments would be delayed, certain programs would be suspended, and many government employees might be furloughed,” Toomey wrote in January, acknowledging that he hoped the drastic scenario might be avoided.

The Treasury Department said the plan constituted a form of default, however, since salaries, taxes and contract payments would have gone unpaid...

....McClintock said that S&P executive David T. Beers told congressmen the key to sustaining a top-notch rating was $4 trillion in deficit savings.

He recalled asking Beers at a meeting, “Well, how about $3 trillion?”

“Beers’ response was emphatic — ‘No,’” the congressman said.

The debt compromise failed to meet S&P requirements.

S&P’s Mukherji said the trajectory and amount of deficit savings factored into the downgrade decision, along with the slow response to the potential crisis by the nation’s leaders.

“What S&P wanted to see from the deal was a stabilization in the debt-to-GDP ratio over time,” he said. “We wanted to see something other than a line that kept going up. That’s what we didn’t see.”

S&P publicly released its criteria for sovereign ratings on June 30, so there would some degree of transparency in how the decision was made....

They knew going into the negotiations exactly what was needed to avoid a downgrade, S&P clearly told them what would avoid and what would NOT. The Republicans wrote plans, made bills and passed them, the Democrats wouldn't even consider them, vote on them or offer an actual plan of their own. Till the stroke of midnight relevant to the deadline, and that was clearly short of what S&P clearly said was necessary to avoid a downgrade.

Just keep spinning it nhboy, at this point it looks like all you're doing is going into a tailspin.

 

[Merlin99]

Link to original article.

"Standard & Poors has a specific justification for downgrading the U.S. bond rating, and it's deadly for Republicans. It wasn't just that Congress showed itself to be reckless and dysfunctional, or that the GOP shows no sign of ever ending their anti-tax jihad.

It's that for a period of weeks, some lawmakers (read: Republicans) were quite literally shrugging off the risks of blowing past the August 2 deadline, running out of borrowing authority, and missing payment obligations.

"[P]eople in the political arena were even talking about a potential default," said Joydeep Mukherji, senior directior at S&P. "That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable," he added. "This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns."

This is unambiguous, and leaves little room for obfuscation. S&P's original, lengthy statement explaining the downgrade cited political dysfunction in Congress quite broadly, but did not mention this specific element of the debate.

For weeks, high-profile conservative lawmakers practically welcomed the notion of exhausting the country's borrowing authority, or even technically defaulting. Others brazenly dismissed the risks of doing so.

And for a period of days, in an earlier stage of the debate, Republican leaders said technical default would be an acceptable consequence, if it meant the GOP walked away with massive entitlement cuts in the end.

Of course, that doesn't mean the GOP won't try to sweep the mess they've made down the memory hole. "

Did you actually keep a straight face when you pasted that one in?

 

[aps45819]

This is unambiguous, and leaves little room for obfuscation. S&P's original, lengthy statement explaining the downgrade cited political dysfunction in Congress quite broadly, but did not mention this specific element of the debate.

Your author admits his assertion is fiction, you should do the same.

 

[thatguy]

Wirelessly posted

This is unambiguous, and leaves little room for obfuscation. S&P's original, lengthy statement explaining the downgrade cited political dysfunction in Congress quite broadly, but did not mention this specific element of the debate.

Your author admits his assertion is fiction, you should do the same.

Why wouldnt he just follow your lead and SPIN

 

[aps45819]

Why wouldnt he just follow your lead and SPIN

Like most things you say, that makes no sense

 

[thatguy]

Wirelessly posted

Why wouldnt he just follow your lead and SPIN

Like most things you say, that makes no sense

Coming from someone who won't admit that what he said is fiction.......
Keep providing the entertainment gramps

 

[Mongo53]

Coming from someone who won't admit that what he said is fiction.......
Keep providing the entertainment gramps

Your entire world is upside down.

The biggest spinner on the forum, that cuts n' pastes nothing but shameless re-hashed spin, but the others on the forum are the spinners?

Oh, please tell us how your Republican again? Yea, right, a Bizzaro World Republican.

 

[thatguy]

Wirelessly posted

Coming from someone who won't admit that what he said is fiction.......
Keep providing the entertainment gramps

Your entire world is upside down.

The biggest spinner on the forum, that cuts n' pastes nothing but shameless re-hashed spin, but the others on the forum are the spinners?

Oh, please tell us how your Republican again? Yea, right, a Bizzaro World Republican.

I don't cut and paste. I provide references.

 

[hvp05]

I don't cut and paste. I provide references.

I'm sure he was talking about nhdrone, the one who never has an original thought of substance.

 

[Mongo53]

I don't cut and paste. I provide references.

Why wouldnt he just follow your lead and SPIN

Now your spinning that you, and we, were NOT speaking about nhboy's cut n' paste of another ridiculous left wing propaganda site, reading into the ambiguous statements from the director of S&P as proof it was just what a few republicans said, was the sole reason they downgraded the U.S. credit rating?

Course we all know the fact we have a debt 100% of GDP with $0.42 of every dollar spent is borrowed money, and we only cut the same amount, we raised the limit, now putting our debt over 100% of GDP, and that the half measure cuts have yet to be decided and may never happen, with one party recalcitrant toward making any cuts that will actually fix the problem, with their bank busting socialist healthcare plan about to be implemented in the next year and on. That couldn't be the reason, could it, Naw?

 

[thatguy]

Wirelessly posted

I don't cut and paste. I provide references.

Why wouldnt he just follow your lead and SPIN

Now your spinning that you, and we, were NOT speaking about nhboy's cut n' paste of another ridiculous left wing propaganda site, reading into the ambiguous statements from the director of S&P as proof it was just what a few republicans said, was the sole reason they downgraded the U.S. credit rating?

Course we all know the fact we have a debt 100% of GDP with $0.42 of every dollar spent is borrowed money, and we only cut the same amount, we raised the limit, now putting our debt over 100% of GDP, and that the half measure cuts have yet to be decided and may never happen, with one party recalcitrant toward making any cuts that will actually fix the problem, with their bank busting socialist healthcare plan about to be implemented in the next year and on. That couldn't be the reason, could it, Naw?

You didn't address anyone but me in your post, I'm not a mind reader. Besides, I ignore nhboys posts and was commenting on aps saying someone wouldn't admit something was fiction when he is busy being guilty of the same thing in that other thread.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

It's that for a period of weeks, some lawmakers (read: Republicans) were quite literally shrugging off the risks of blowing past the August 2 deadline, running out of borrowing authority, and missing payment obligations.

who was in charge of Congress and the White House from 2008 to 2010 and could have taken care of this before it got out of hand

oh that's right, Demorats did not want to pass a budget ..... and be forced to run in 2009 / 2010 on that record