by JASmius
Barack Obama and his party of Keynesian savages obstructed Cap, Cut & Balance, Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell made sure he had to own it, and now cometh the whirlwind boomeraging in the White House's direction:
Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings affirmed their AAA credit ratings for the U.S. while warning that the ratings could be downgraded if lawmakers fail to enact debt reduction measures and the economy weakens.
The rating outlook is now negative, Moody’s said in a statement yesterday after President Barack Obama signed into law a plan to lift the nation’s borrowing limit and cut spending....
A ratings cut would raise the specter that the wrangling between Obama and Republican lawmakers over spending cuts and taxes will harm American prestige and the global financial system. JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated that a downgrade would raise the nation’s borrowing costs by $100 billion a year. It could also hurt the rest of the U.S. economy by increasing the cost of mortgages, auto loans and other types of lending tied to the interest rates paid on Treasurys.
“A downgrade is a sign that Congress is failing to address a real fiscal issue,” Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said in an interview before the announcements.
Congress AND the White House. And that "real fiscal issue" will remain unaddressed unless and until Republicans regain control of both. Read the balance of the article; it's uglier than a triple centerfold of Roseann Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, and Hillary Clinton in a lesbo threesome in Hoghunter magazine. And it's all resting squarely upon Godbama's big, fat, inflated head. Think the GOP won't be wielding that hammer daily over the next fifteen months? They wouldn't have it if Tea Partiers had gotten their way.
Here's another piece of the crisis that Red Barry no longer wants:
The committee of bond dealers and investors that advises the U.S. Treasury said the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency “appears to be slipping” in quarterly feedback presented to the government.
The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which includes representatives from firms ranging from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Pacific Investment Management Co., said the outperformance of safe-haven currencies and those from emerging nations has aided in the debasement of the dollar’s reserve status, according to comments included in discussion charts presented ahead of the quarterly refunding. The Treasury published the documents today.
“The idea of a reserve currency is that it is built on strength, not typically that it is ‘best among poor choices’,” page 35 of presentation made by one committee member said. “The fact that there are not currently viable alternatives to the U.S. dollar is a hollow victory and perhaps portends a deteriorating fate.”
Know who's one of the biggest voices hollaring for dethroning "King Dollar" (to borrow a Kudlowism)? Red China. Perhaps the two are related; and perhaps that's been part of The One's "wrenchingly transformative" endgame all along, except for the part of him having to take his uncomfortably [heh] "fair share" of the blame for it.
So what are their options? (1) Smear the GOP and (2) make excuses so risible that not even Paul Krugman would buy them.
President Barack Obama's spokesman is discounting talk that the economy may be headed back into recession, despite recent concerns of economists.
Spokesman Jay Carney says there is no question that economic growth and job creation have slowed over the past half year.
But, Carney told a White House briefing, "We do not believe that there is a threat of a double-dip recession."...
He blamed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, higher energy prices, default worries in Europe and recently resolved uncertainty over raising America's borrowing limit.
Carney said, "We believe the economy will continue to grow."
And we all thought "Beltway Bob" Gibbs was a pathetic, windmill-tilting bastard with the worst job in the world. Carney's such a three-watt bulb (wait a minute - didn't the Dems ban those?) you have to wonder if he even realizes what a complete boob he sounds like spouting this nonsense. Either that or the whizkids in the Regime's propaganda shop secretly want to feed every GOP "the President is hopelessly out of touch" narrative the PR equivalent of "liquid Schwartz." Besides, wasn't it Dr. Chicago himself who once claimed to be the one who would, among other Charlton Heston-esque miracles, "lower the sea levels"? Guess he was on the back nine when the Japs got hit a few months back, huh?
If I may roll out my translation disgronificator once more, what Carney was REALLY saying is, "We want you noodle-headed voters to believe the economy (1) is growing and (2) will continue to grow at the breakneck clip we don't want you to realize it laughingly isn't." As though the public is still in doubt about this little fact, and there's some deep, dark mystery about the Duffer-in-Chief's plummeting-like-Miley-Cyrus'-neckline approval numbers.
Sounds to me like Red Barry needs to turn in his golf shoes for a set of bowling shoes. Then maybe if he clicks them together enough times, and crosses his fingers, toes, eyes, and touches his ears together, maybe wishing really will be enough to save his worthless ass.
Otherwise, he'll have to rely on the Tea Party's roaring political naivete to save him.
Hmm; maybe he's not entirely without hope after all.
[cross posted at Hard Starboard]
AGENDA: Grinding America Down (Trailer) from Copybook Heading Productions LLC on Vimeo.
by JASmius
"China Fingered (in Massive Series of Cyber Attacks)"
What would Joanie Laurer say? In this case, probably "ouch":
Experts are calling for greater Internet security measures in government in the wake of a massive wave of global cyber attacks that saw two Canadian government agencies' computer systems infiltrated by what experts suggest was an espionage operation.
A report by Internet security company McAfee said the attacks — which spanned at least five years — likely were perpetrated by a foreign government and could be very costly for Canadian firms competing in the global marketplace.
The report, released Wednesday, said that if even a fraction of the stolen data "is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation . . . the loss represents a massive economic threat."...
The Canadian government was among 72 organizations, including the United Nations, U.S. government, defence contractors and other international companies, that were compromised, said the report.
Sure sounds like a ChiComm operation to me. It's advanced, technically superior, and so far under the radar the we're only discovering the Canadians had to discover it for us.
Shall we revisit the prophetic prognostications of Lev Navrozov?:
[L]et us recall that England became in the 17th century a strong military power due to its Industrial Revolution (spinning and weaving machines, Watt’s steam engine, the railway locomotive, and the factory system with its assembly lines). Arms that used explosives were called “firearms.” That was what war was like for about four centuries, including the past century: steel contraptions blasted out — by means of explosives — bullets, shells, bombs, etc., to kill enemy soldiers and destroy enemy installations.
Nano-weaponry makes it all as obsolete as firearms made bows obsolete in the 17th century....
All this may seem miraculous in 2008 just as firearms seemed miraculous in 1646. Yet the new epoch has come: The future world war will be a war of nano-weapons, not of firearms.
The advent of the epoch of firearms was fostered by the Industrial Revolution. There is no such nano-machinery revolution that would foster the production of nano-weaponry. My readers ask me where they can see nano-weapons as they can see firearms. Devoted to new weapons in all countries is the book Oblivion: America at the Brink by Lt. Col. Thomas Bearden (U.S. Army, retired). Bearden believes that the United States is “at the brink” in this respect. “If we are to survive, we shall need the most strenuous and rapid effort in our history, now.”
That quote was from....September 8th, 2008. Makes Lieutenant Colonel Bearden's words almost tragic, doesn't it?
Ever see Terminator III: Rise of the Machines? Think of General Brewster as Red Barry, and the ChiComms as Skynet. The only question for the rest of us is whether we can make it to Crystal Peak in time.
[cross posted at Hard Starboard]
