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The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor’s on Friday in an unprecedented reversal of fortune for the world’s largest economy.
S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government’s budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the American government, companies and consumers.
[ http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/us-usa-debt-downgrade-idUSTRE7746VF20110806 ]
it’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie!
what a bunch of wankers these politicians are. think of the billions that could be saved if we stopped waging perpetual war!
Earlier this morning a friend emailed me this:
“The only massive stimulus spending that Congress will now approve is to avenge another Pearl Harbor and to wage another World War. I think another Pearl Harbor is coming…”
Let’s hope he’s very wrong!
OK, I make no claims of being a macro or micro economist, and I’m certainly no expert on foreign relations, but I don’t understand why congress can’t consider passing a bill that instructs the Secretary of State to send a diplomatic message to every government that receives foreign aid from the US, something like
“Dear Mr. Foreign Ambassador,
As you are aware, it is no secret that the USA is suffering a serious financial crisis. Until such time that we can get our own house in order, we find it necessary to modify our policy on foreign aid. We want to treat everyone fairly, and equally, and we want you to have time to make your own financial adjustments, so this letter is to advise you that starting in 2012, your country, along with every other country, will receive 50% of the amount you received in 2011. And that’s not all. In 2013, it will be reduced an additional 50% to a level that is equal to 25% of the 2011 amount. We will see how we are doing at time and let you know if further reductions or total elimination will be in order for 2014 and subsequent years.
Thank you for understanding why this is necessary, but until such time as we are once again on firm financial footing, “the candy store closed”.
Have a nice day.
Signed Secretary of State Hillary (I’m so glad I’m not president) Clinton”I know it is a very simplistic approach, but maybe that is what is necessary – a simple, across the board, equal plan that turns off the ATM machine on foreign aid, and then we should do the same on all these wacko entitlements and earmarks.
And by the way, my social security and your social security and everyone else’s social security is NOT AN ENTITLEMENT. It is OUR MONEY, or at least it WAS our money.
I get so angry every time I hear some politician or talking head say, “and we still have to address how to increase revenues and the question of social security, Medicare and other entitlements”.
OK, another cup of coffee and I’ll be fine, but I already feel better.
all that foreign aid comes with a price. in exchange we get to rape their natural resources, and indebt them. it’s all crazy but this has been in the pipeline since Daddy Bush or before. the people getting the entitlements are our senators and congressmen — high pay for a job poorly done, lots of paid holidays, a great pension plan, healthcare benefits and unlimited sick time. don’t get me started. i was having a nice day until it finally sunk in that we are SCREWED!!!
It ain’t getting any prettier ….
US Postal Service warns it could default
The US Postal Service warned on Friday that it could default on payments it owes the federal government, just days after the US government itself narrowly averted a default.
The government’s mail service said it lost $3.1 billion in the period from April to June, blaming “the anemic state of the economy” and the growing popularity of electronic communications over old-fashioned letters.
[ http://news.yahoo.com/us-postal-warns-could-default-222059604.html ]
Standard & Poors cannot get the day of the week right, why and how did they receive the power to screw all of us!
and why didn’t the USPS raise a red flag when they were only a half a billion in the hole? who ARE these idiots running these agencies?? this type of fiscal ineptitude makes third world and developing countries look like the paradigm of efficiency!!
CRbill, there are two problems with your proposed letter to all foreign and recipients. First, of course, is the matter that the totality of U.S. foreign aid is a very, very small part of the total of federal general fund expenditures. Making the cuts you propose would be like passing a requirement that all federal employees use their lead pencils until they are two inches long or shorter. A savings? Well, yes, but minuscule in the scheme of things.
If you really do want to save some federal bucks, have the Secretary of Treasury send that same letter to every corporate recipient of federal welfare and needless tax breaks. Now you’re talking big bucks!
The second problem is that, as a matter of pursuing our foreign policy, we DO NOT wish to treat every recipient of foreign aid equally with all the rest. Nor should we.
Directly or indirectly, we’re providing very substantial aid to our european and far eastern allies in the form of defense installations on their soils (employing legions of locals) which are primarily for their own defenses and not ours, which has been the case since the recent demise of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, we keep standing armies (whose members spend a lot of money locally) all over Europe and the Far East protecting those who could be protecting themselves (or at the very least paying us to defend them).
Would you really propose to treat these “beneficiaries” (read: deadbeats) the same as (say) the people of northeast Africa where, you may have heard, there is widespread famine and an enormous need for food relief? Should we really cut everyone the same?
And by the way, bill, it really isn’t OUR MONEY. Social Security IS an entitlement.
From Day One, workers and employers have paid an employment tax to fund Social Security. Those revenues are and always have been dedicated to meeting then-current beneficiaries’ present day needs. Yes, employees do “earn” credits toward meeting their own future needs, but the Social Security funds that we receive each month are NOT OURS. They’re the funds that are withheld every payday from currently active wage earners.
My grandfather enrolled in Social Security around 1935, when the program had just begun to receive payroll taxes. He contributed (a very little bit) to it for a year or so and then retired. He lived until 1952, collecting Social Security all the while, and my grandmother lived until 1958. I promise you, the money they received, and the money that all subsequent beneficiaries have received, is NOT theirs.
[quote=”DavidCMurray”]And by the way, bill, it really isn’t OUR MONEY. Social Security IS an entitlement.
From Day One, workers and employers have paid an employment tax to fund Social Security. Those revenues are and always have been dedicated to meeting then-current beneficiaries’ present day needs. Yes, employees do “earn” credits toward meeting their own future needs, but the Social Security funds that we receive each month are NOT OURS. They’re the funds that are withheld every payday from currently active wage earners.
My grandfather enrolled in Social Security around 1935, when the program had just begun to receive payroll taxes. He contributed (a very little bit) to it for a year or so and then retired. He lived until 1952, collecting Social Security all the while, and my grandmother lived until 1958. I promise you, the money they received, and the money that all subsequent beneficiaries have received, is NOT theirs.[/quote]
Which suggests: Shouldn’t we begin the long-term process of phasing out Social Security and begin the long-term process of teach our kids and future generations to learn to to save for themselves. Why do so many people have the need to “depend” on things?
[quote=”bogino”]Which suggests: Shouldn’t we begin the long-term process of phasing out Social Security and begin the long-term process of teach our kids and future generations to learn to to save for themselves. Why do so many people have the need to “depend” on things?[/quote]
Well, it’s a lofty goal, all right, but I’d argue that you have the sequence backwards. Let’s change the actual long-term saving behavior first, get well over three hundred million people to change their savings habits, and only once that has been accomplished pull the Social Security rug out from under them. After all, in the current booming economy, anyone who wishes can become wealthy, right?
The forced saving and old-age safety net reflected by Social Security requires only the affirmative behavior of 270 right-thinking Americans (218 U.S. Representatives + 51 U.S. Senators + 1 President). Teaching 300+ million people to do anything and getting them to comply will be a little tougher. Do you have a plan?
Or are you proposing to set a deadline by which everyone must be wealthy independent of Social Security and then simply cutting them loose? With the progression of global warming what it is, I don’t think there’ll be enough iceberg space.
“Lofty Goal” or not something has to be done. Or we can keep doing what we have been doing and STOP complaining.
As far as that global warming stuff…..bunch of nonsense in my opinion.
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