S&P Downgrade: If Obama did not want this to happen, it would not happen

Karmadillo

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Sat Aug-06-11 09:08 PM
Original message

S&P Downgrade: If Obama did not want this to happen, it would not happen

Edited on Sat Aug-06-11 09:25 PM by Karmadillo

Remember, it was Obama who created the Catfood Commission to create pressure on entitlements. It was Obama who played along with the Republicans to create the debt ceiling kabuki crisis in order to establish a framework for the Raw Deal of $4 trillion in cuts. It was Obama who agreed to a deal creating the Super Congress which will attempt to ram through the Raw Deal Obama and the Republicans couldn't. Allowing S&P (the S&P of the suprime crisis, the S&P that was let off the hook by--surprise!--the Obama administration of the looking forward and not backwards) to pull this stunt is simply more of the same. We can continue to play our kabuki role and scream, "OMG! Michelle Bachmann is running for president!" on cue or we can demonstrate we are oriented to time and place by working to reestablish the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party as the protector of the American people against the financial elites who care no more for us than they care about the horrific tragedy in East Africa (the only difference is they'll send Eric Idle around to collect your corpse as it's aesthetically unpleasing to have dead Americans lying around at random).

So those of you who object to primarying Obama, ask yourself what do you have to lose? Obama ran as a hope and change figure of ambiguous liberalness and revealed himself to be an ever rightward drifting servant of the corporate elite. A Democratic president leading the charge against Medicare and Social Security! WTF! He doesn't need to be sent a message (he obviously doesn't care about the opinions of the Democratic left), but we need to do something more than sit around and eat whatever we're given. The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party needs to establish a belief in itself, a belief that government, not the incredibly destructive private market of socialized loses and privatized gains, is the solution to our myriad problems. And, as others have noted, we need to start locally, too, to rebuild a party that clearly needs rebuilding. Any Democrat who can't bring themselves to vote for the interests of the American people and against the interests of the Wall Street parasites needs to go.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/comments-on-the-sp-downgrade/

Comments on the S&P Downgrade
2011 August 6
by Ian Welsh

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3. However, Obama and Democrats refused to destroy S&P when they had the opportunity and every reason to do so. The submprime crisis could not have been nearly as bad without S&P and the other rating�s agencies rating trash AAA so that investors who must buy AAA by law could do so. To put it simply, S&P engaged in systematic fraud. They, like everyone on Wall Street and in the major banks, have not been indicted for this. The choice to not indict is policy. Obama�s policy.

4. If Obama did not want this to happen, it would not happen. Could you imagine what LBJ, Nixon or Truman (or, hell, Bush Jr.) would have done if a rating�s agency tried this? The President has the necessary tools to utterly destroy S&P and every senior analyst working for them. You could use terrorism statutes or RICO, just as two examples. Send the FBI into their offices, seize all the assets of both the company and everyone working for it, and then got through their records. I guarantee, as absolutely as the sun will rise tomorrow morning, that there is enough evidence of fraud in those records to put them away for life. In the meantime, RICO laws are used to seize all the assets of everyone involved, meaning they will be using public defenders (don�t like a bad law? Use it against real people.) When S&P informed the White House they were going to downgrade, the White House could have quietly let them know what the consequences would be.

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6. S&P knows all this. They are doing this because they know the President and Congress and the real people in the oligarchy want it done. Remember, a downgrade increases rates, and that is a direct increase to their income. And they know the US can pay, they aren�t fooled by idiotic talk about a default. The US may default at some point, but that will be a political decision.

7. This is another manufactured crisis, on top of the original manufactured debt ceiling crisis. The oligarchy wants the opportunity to buy federal assets at dimes on the dollar. They believe they don�t need the poor or middle class anymore, so they are good with getting rid of SS and Medicare. And Obama is, as he always has been, onside with this.