Sometimes you wonder where they get the nerve.
The remarkable thing…the REALLY remarkable thing…is that California still has what the United States no longer does. A “AAA” credit rating. And how could THAT happen? After all, California is forever struggling to pay its bills…and finding new and creative ways not to. The United States hasn’t, so far as we can tell, ever come even close. And yet Standard & Poors has no problem keeping California’s credit rating at the pinnacle while dropping the good old U.S. of A. off the cliff.
Where do they get the nerve?
If you’re looking for the stupid in this situation, you don’t have to look far. You don’t really have to look further than Standard & Poors itself. Forget that they…and their “ratings for sale”…were at the bottom of the bursting of the real estate bubble or that they gave Lehman Brothers an “A” rating at the very moment Lehman was going under. Forget the stacks and stacks of worthless mortgage based securities they blessed with their coveted “AAA” rating. The banks paid them well for that service. One has the feeling if President Obama had slipped them a spare twenty this whole thing might have come out differently.
And, of course, they couldn’t base the downgrade on their numbers…because the numbers they used were wrong…miscalculated by $2 TRILLION. Wait a minute…aren’t these people supposed to be accountants or economists? They’re not? Then how…? Well, never mind. It’s not the numbers that are at issue but the broken political system. Never mind that Standard & Poors was broken long before anybody even looked at the political system.
You don’t have to look further than S & P…but how can you not? Because standing right there are the Republicans and, in most particular, the Tea Baggers who not only weren’t afraid we’d default on the debt but actually thought it would be a good thing. They were warned…warned over and over again…that, if action wasn’t taken on the debt ceiling, the nation’s credit rating was at risk. Now listen to them howl! And blame everyone but themselves. Of course, they were all against the compromise that actually raised the debt ceiling…as were all the putative Republican Presidential candidates, including Tea Bagger Bachmann…but the consequences are the President’s fault and nobody else’s. Hmmm. Wonder if these yahoos did slip S & P… No, they wouldn’t have the brains.
One doesn’t suspect the Democrats of stupidity so much as timidity. Not that there’s much difference. Being right doesn’t much matter if you don’t stand up for being right. You’d rather be stupid, I think. Being stupid and doing the wrong thing is one thing. Being smart…and right…and still allowing the wrong thing to be done is something else.
So this little episode is over…for now. And you wonder if it’s possible to find someone with an IQ over, say, 60 to lead us out of this mess?
Don’t hold your breath.
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