Free Republic

Avoid panic selling. As Forbes columnist Richard Ferri suggests here, don't make hasty moves when the stock market has a bad day -- in reaction to an S&P downgrade or any other news. ... Play tax arbitrage. Review your IRAs and taxable accounts to see if you can at least wring some long-term tax savings out of the market's recent decline. ... Maintain -- or increase -- your 401k contributions. Don't curb your contributions (or reduce the amount you're putting into stock funds) just because the market is down. ... Fund a Roth IRA. If you want to boost retirement...

The Dow Jones industrial average plunged as much as 600 points midday Monday as the market rout continued in the first day of trading after Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating. Investors have piled out of stocks all day and into a few safe havens, such as gold and Treasury bonds. The appetite for Treasury bonds suggests that the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. has not shaken the faith of investors in U.S. bonds. Market experts said that the market selloff on Monday was sparked by the S&P announcement, but is more motivated by growing...

U.S. stocks plunged deep into the red on Monday as fearful investors faced the news that the United States had lost its coveted "AAA" credit rating. All three major U.S. stock indexes were down between 4% and 5%, pushing the Dow below 11,000 for the first time since November. The stock market has now lost 14% during the past two weeks. Market observers tried to say the downgrade by itself shouldn't matter -- that it was expected and that the United States still has a strong credit rating. But the market wasn't buying it. "Investors are having one reaction to...

Today, President Barack Hussein Obama, a few days the United States credit rating went from being a “AAA” to a “AA+” downgrade in a decision by Standard and Poor or S & P decides to give a press conference, and what surprises me to NO END when President Obama still calls the USA a “AAA” nation DESPITE this downgrade. Well I have a set of “new words” in regards to what remains of the era of President Barack Hussein Obama and it came from the Drudge Report website: “Barackalypse Now” IMHO, President Obama, because of the over-spending and over-taxing that...

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Little is known about key details that led Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. debt late Friday, despite its outsized repurcussions. While the move knocking U.S. debt down a notch from the lofty AAA rating has exacerbated an already skittish stock market and drawn criticism from the White House, key details are a mystery. S&P doesn't say who, exactly, made the decision at the company; what kind of weight they gave U.S. politics versus ability to pay; or to what extent they felt pressured to downgrade the United States in response to criticism of its downgrades of...

The S&P downgrade was not as much a comment on the numbers of credit service as a comment on the political process. The political process is about confronting the probability of a hyper-inflationary collapse of our currency if fiscal irresponsibility, entitlement spending and bank bailout mentality are not addressed. If the credit rating firms had continued the charade of AAA quality, it would merely enable the not sustainable march toward hyper-inflation. Ultimately, the S&P downgrade of Treasuries is a downgrade of all dollar denominated assets. If we can print dollars to pay Treasury debt, it is the currency that is...

Standard and Poor’s explanation for why it downgraded U.S. debt is written in such a way that it can be seized upon by all ideological stripes. The statement cites the unwillingness of Republicans to raise taxes and of Democrats to agree to entitlement cuts. And the rating agency’s discourse about the political dysfunction will provide column fodder for Washington pundits who long for the days when both parties would work together to reach compromises. But make no mistake, when all the dust settles, it will be difficult for President Obama to escape blame for this. Defenders of Obama will attempt...

In a speech that was more of his usual blaming, shaming and vaguely claiming he'll start leading soon; President Barack Obama took to the podium today to address the downgrade in our nation's credit rating. He started, almost an hour late, with a not-so-veiled swipe at his political opponents claiming the loss of our triple-A rating was caused by a lack of faith in our political system's "ability to act" and then he offered such nonsensical blather as "No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country." As he continued to speak...

Freep this poll: Do you think the tea party is to blame for the downgrade of the nation's credit rating? Yes 21 (5%) No 359(93%) Undecided 0 (0%) Other 2 (0%)

President Obama was behind schedule in delivering his remarks on the US credit downgrade this afternoon. S&P downgraded US credit for the first time in history on Friday evening, but rather than address the downgrade at that time, the president took a few close advisers to huddle at Camp David over the weekend. The president’s closest adviser, David Axelrod, led a blame chorus over the weekend, telling the nation that the historic downgrade was the fault of the Tea Party.While the nation awaited the president’s remarks, we were treated to this image on the cable nets. It’s an image that...

Obama says U.S. is still a AAA country Photo 2:12pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday blamed a downgrade in the United States' credit rating on political gridlock in Washington and said he would offer some recommendations on how to reduce federal deficits. Obama said in a White House appearance that he hopes the Standard and Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt to AA-plus from AAA will give lawmakers a new sense of urgency to tackle deficit spending and said he did not believe the reductions could be carried out with spending cuts alone.

CONCORD, NH -- At a Chamber of Commerce roundtable and brief press conference beforehand, Mitt Romney wasted no time in hammering President Obama's handling of the economy. "I'm afraid the president is just out of his depth at understanding how the private economy works." Romney told reporters here. He also said Obama turned Harry Truman's axiom on its head by placing blame for the S&P downgrade on Congress, saying that the new motto for this White House should be: "The buck stops somewhere else." In a Q&A session with local business leaders, Romney explained his usual seven-point economic plan, and...

House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said he was "not ver surprised" by S&P's decision to downgrade the nation’s credit rating and said he would serve on the debt 'supercommittee' if chosen by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "I'm not very surprised of this downgrade. We more or less saw this coming because we're on the wrong fiscal path," Ryan said on Fox News Sunday. He said the decision was a warning shot that "Washington has not gotten its fiscal house in order." Ryan also expressed concern that a rise in interest rates would add to the deficit. "If...

Ratings agency Moody's repeated a warning on Monday it could downgrade the United States before 2013 if the fiscal or economic outlook weakens significantly, but said it saw the potential for a new debt agreement in Washington to cut the budget deficit before then. With U.S. markets still to open after rival Standard & Poor's stripped the United States of its AAA rating late on Friday, Moody's said in a statement its own decision to affirm the AAA rating on August 2 was on the condition that further cuts were found. "For the Aaa rating to remain in place, we...

Rush hammers Obama at the open of his show today saying I can't tell...How mad I am at what is being done. You may not want to admit that this is being done on purpose, but if you sit down and spend just 15 minutes analysing what has happened in the last 2 1/2 years, I don't know how you can come to any other conclusion'...(Audio)

Leave it Michael Moore: “Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down the economy in 2008& now they will do it again,” Moore profoundly tweeted Monday. Read the full article: http://thedc.com/rk60eL

This might sound rhetorical, but I assure you, it is a legitimate question: has Barack Obama served a single day as President? The thing is, according to Democrats and the President himself, nothing that ever goes wrong is ever Mr. Obama's fault. And since, under his leadership, things are constantly going bad, that means, if the Democrats are right, Mr. Obama has not served a single day as our Commander in Chief. Some examples: The United States being downgraded? Certainly not Mr. Obama's fault! It must have been the Tea Party and the Republicans who were pushing for a balanced...

CNBC just broke in and told the audience that the President has requested airtime and will speak to the nation at 1300hrs EST (12 noon central, 10 AM PST) on the US national debt downgrade.Developing...

Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's on Monday downgraded the debt of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The downgrades to AA+ are part of the continued fallout from the agency's decision to drop U.S. sovereign debt to AA+, an unprecedented move that rattled investors and sparked concern over the long-term impact of the action It was widely expected that S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt would roll downhill to other entities that are closely linked to the federal government.