In All Seriousness, What If Barack Obama Is Right? (Redstate.com)

RedState.com ^ | August 8, 2011 | Erik Erikson

[lbryce]

Seriously. All you people on left and right, suspend your disbelief for one minute. Seriously.

What if Barack Obama was right and S&P just got it wrong.

Here’s what I’m hearing and it gives credence to this theory.

S&P, I’m told, began telling some of its clients about the downgrade on Friday morning. That’s why the market was so screwed up on Friday.

By Friday afternoon, the Treasury Department told S&P it had made a $2 trillion math mistake.

But S&P had already told its clients about the downgrade. So it couldn’t walk it back now without a major loss of confidence in its credibility. Could you imagine that conversation? “Hey . . . um . . . Joe. Yeah, Charlie here from S&P. So . . .um . . . we made a $2 trillion math mistake in our downgrade analysis. . . . What’s that? You just lost $500 million in the market because of it? Oh . . . um . . . sorry Joe. Better luck next time.”

So it had to come up with a different reason.

It’s reason? Acrimony in Washington — in other words, nothing to do with the U.S.A.’s ability to pay its debts or financial issues, just typical Washington politics. And it couched its statement in such a way that the tea party movement could say, “see, see, we told you Washington needed more cuts,” and the left could say, “see, see, we told you we needed tax increases.”

Acrimony in Washington is nothing new. Despite a lot of rhetoric about compromise this past week, it is a feature, not a bug, of the American system of government. And major debt and growing deficits are nothing new. And they are bipartisan, pre-existing, long term, and long existing problems.

[Lancey Howard]

S&P, I’m told, began telling some of its clients about the downgrade on Friday morning.

It seems to me that if that happened it would constitute something criminal, something akin to insider trading. If some of S&P's "clients" had that kind of information and others did not, some people would be really, really upset. Really, really, really, REALLY upset.

And Eric Holder would be on this like a fly on a turd.
Sorry. No sale on this story.

[Lancey Howard]

Isn’t Moody’s owned by Warren Buffet?

[NoLibZone]

That $2 trillion math mistake is what Obama has made.

And added to our debt - but denies.

Everyone sees that 2T but him.

[Lancey Howard]

Why yes, Warren Buffet IS an owner of Moody's:

Moody's was founded in 1909 by John Moody. Top institutional owners of Moody's include Berkshire Hathaway and Davis Selected Advisers.

[dervish]

In all seriousness this may be the best thing that has happened to the US since the election of that America hater.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce.

What if Barack Obama was right and S&P just got it wrong.

[catfish1957]

We are upteen trillion dollars in debt, with no relief in site. How could we have not been downgraded. I’m with Rick Santelli when he said that if it hadn’t of been for the tea party we’d be at BBB rating.

[Malesherbes]

There are ten rating agencies. The most independent is Egan-Jones which down-rated the Zero government two weeks before the S&P did.

[SuziQ]

In the run up to the vote on the new budget, I never ONCE heard anyone say that we were facing a downgrade because of acrimony between the parties, or gridlock. It was always the debt limit needs to be raised, or we'll default, and be downgraded by the ratings agencies.

All this 'acrimony' silliness is after the fact, and because the Democrats want blame everyone but themselves for the mess they've caused since they were in charge of the House (which passes budgets) from 2006, then the whole shebang from 2008, on, until Nov. of 2010. They'll be out of the majorities in Congress and out of the White House as well, in Jan. of 2013!