My Nomination for Time Magazine’s ‘Person of the year’….STANDARD & POOR’S
MY NOMINATION FOR TIME MAGAZINE’S ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’: Standard & Poor’s
Standard & Poor’s recognized the insanity of Congress during its debate over raising the federal debt limit.
The problem was not the debate, itself, but the nature of the philosophical concepts of the protagonists, the Republicans and the Democrats.
If the Republicans’ stated goal of cutting the deficits by reducing federal expenditures were to be adopted, the U.S. and, most probably, the rest of this planet would be plunged into a depression.
The Democrats did not appear to be as intensive with their demands. In fact, they were willing to succumb to demands by the Republicans that were in direct opposition to the core values of Democrats, e.g., Social Security and Medicare, to such a point that it appeared to me that this was a Kabuki version of a poorly scripted ‘good-cop, bad-cop’ Thespian play.
The agreed decision was to cut expenditures (the suicidal route) only, but the expenditures were, fortuitously, extremely limited in the early years, thus the immediacy of hara-kiri has been perceived as being, temporarily, averted. That perception will change or Congress will locate a modicum of sanity. Hopefully, the latter will occur sooner rather than later, which means that the Group of Twelve will reach a pragmatic plan that will include mostly revenue enhancements, beginning with the reversal of the 2001 Bush tax legislation.
MY FANTASY: Apparently, Congress has decided to hold hearings as to why Standard & Poor’s downgraded federal obligations. My fantasy is that, during the testimony, the Standard & Poor’s executives will reflect that Congress appeared to be involved in an exercise of insanity during the negotiations regarding the debt limit
mz
August 12, 2011
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