I love being correct. Seems to happen a lot lately. Well, as expected our elected officials up on Capitol Hill brought together a multi-phased “compromise” of a bill to raise the debt ceiling on the very last day they had available. The time-crunch made for some very impressive political theater. Of course it was immediately signed into law and of course everyone promptly went out to the media outlets to discuss how their respective party sacrificed so much and the hooligans from the other party almost drove the nation to default.
Cuz it’s never your side’s fault. It’s those dirty, no good other-siders.
So, Armageddon avoided once again. That is, until Standard and Poors Ratings decided to take the “Screw America” spotlight and downgrade our treasury debt rating from AAA to AA+. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I ever brought home a AA+ on homework it would go right up on the fridge and I’d get ice cream that night. Clearly our debt rating does not receive similar kudos. Or ice cream.
This is the first debt downgrade our country has ever seen. It’s a pretty big deal. China came out and publically said that our days of “easy borrowing” are over which was kind of a rude thing for our eco-nomic bedfellow to say. Lots of other reputable sources (Forbes, Berkshire Hathaway, etc.) have come forward claiming that S&P was massively wrong to downgrade the debt, and the other two ratings agencies still hold us at a strong AAA.
This is following a horrific week in the equity markets, where Obama got a 513 point drop on the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a 50th birthday present. This week hasn’t been much better thus far. So if you’re planning on retiring here in the nearby future, I sincerely hope you are able to adjust your expectations. Because you can’t have your dog food AND ketchup now. Gotta tighten the ol’ belt.
The recent Fed Open Market Committee meeting proved essentially toothless aside from Bernanke telling the markets that they will need to “stand on their own” going forward. They also pledged to keep benchmark rates at these historic low levels through at least mid-2013, marking a noteworthy reduction in ambiguity over their policy going forward.
An interesting side-note though: 3 of the 10 Fed Chiefs dissented with keeping the target Fed Funds Rate between 0.00 and 0.25%, marking the first time since 1992 that the FOMC ended with so many dissenters. T’would seem there is a rising difference of opinion towards the low rates agenda.
England is evidently burning itself down. And I… I just don’t care. Maybe they finally figured out that warm beer sucks. Maybe it’s a crumpet famine, I dunno. Something dumb, probably.
And the bloodshed between us and the Taliban rages on. We have killed those involved in the downing of a U.S. helicopter containing 38 people, 22 of which were Navy Seals. A part of me wants to celebrate the retribution, but the whole situation stands as a grim reminder that we are indeed still at war with what continues to be a very dangerous enemy.
Know what? I hate ending on a downer. So here’s a link to a video about kittens. Everybody loves kittens. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX8nswnUKU And those kittens want you to buy a house and finance it through Greg. Are you gonna deny them? I didn’t think so.
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