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Before the debt deal was even struck, many of us understood that without real changes in the way government does business, our credit rating was going to be downgraded. The house passed the Ryan budget in the spring, and the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill early this summer. Either of these bills, had they been passed by the Senate, would have prevented our country from being downgraded. But Senate Democrats did not pass either, and Harry Reid refused to allow the Cut, Cap, and Balance Bill to even come up for a vote. The Democrats may be many things, but...

In the first trading day following S&P’s announcement that the U.S. government credit rating would go from Triple-A down to AA+, U.S. stocks have sharply declined and investors are scrambling to rid themselves of risky assets. With Wall Street in disarray, one investor is smiling after having walked away from the crisis possibly 10 billion dollars richer. ETF Daily News reports that the investor bet on the downgrade, and is now heavily benefiting from it: “Someone dropped a bomb on the bond market Thursday – a $1 billion Armageddon trade betting the United States will lose its AAA credit rating....

Alliteration aside… Given the recent downgrade of the United States credit rating by S&P one would have expected our exalted leader to use the bully pulpit to infuse some confidence into an already battered economy. Perhaps to speak directly to the problem, spending, and provide a coherent path forward. Of course this is President Obama and such a thing seems to be beyond his scope of expertise. What we got instead was the same old trite and tired finger pointing and hollow platitudes. The President scarcely made it through his first sentence before he abdicated his responsibility for the current...

How politically damaging is the Standard & Poor's credit downgrade to President Obama? The answer can be found in the vociferous attempts by the administration to blame everyone else. You only do that if you're worried. snip . . . Mr. Obama knows that the public is unhappy with this blow to America's financial stature, and presidents get the blame when such humiliations happen on their watch.

During a period like this, with stocks plunging almost on a daily basis, it's clear that fear and shock are ruling the roost. But fear can be overdone. As someone who has been around awhile and has seen many sell-offs, let me offer some advice: Do not panic. Market corrections come and go. They are not the end of the world. Most times they are actually healthy. The S&P downgrade is a fiscal warning, not an economic event. And the growing fear of U.S. recession may not pan out. There are still plusses out there, believe it or not. Our...

There’s an old expression that goes, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you’re a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” In what has to be seen as a defining moment in Barack Obama’s failed presidency, the POTUS Ignoramus took to the airwaves today to “reassure the American people” that America is still doing well under his leadership, and that Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s credit rating was obviously a mistake. The telling moment: Just after Obama suggested that the way to restore our credit rating and to overcome our debt problems...

“Is the world going bankrupt?" headlines Der Spiegel, wondering about the implications of US public debt, the euro crisis and chaos on the markets. The Hamburg-based magazine paints a bleak picture in which policy in Europe and the United States is struggling to keep up with financial markets, which are increasingly unstable and destabilised by initiatives that aim to restore order. Ever since governments took on extensive debts to save banks three years ago, no one has provided a satisfactory answer to the question of who will rescue the rescuers, warns Spiegel. To date, "European bailouts are mainly defined by...

Asian markets plunged on Tuesday following a massive selloff in the United States that sent the Dow spiraling below the 11,000-mark for the first time since 2010. In mid-day trading in Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 tumbled 4.4% to 8,694, while the Chinese Hang Seng nose dived 7.3% to 19,005. Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures were deep in the red in electronic trading. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures plummeted 271 points to 10,455, S&P 500 futures dipped 28.3 points to 1,083 and Nasdaq 100 futures slid 56.5 points to 1,982.

Alternate headline: “Feds leave dead fish on S&P’s doorstep.” And if you think this is shady, check out how Italy handled its own threat of a downgrade from S&P. Good lord. What happens if they downgrade Egypt? Does David Beers end up in the cage with Mubarak?Note to Fitch from the Senate Banking Committee: Choose wisely. Following S&P’s Friday night decision to reduce the nation’s credit standing from AAA to AA+, the panel has begun gathering information about the downgrade, according to a committee aide. Reuters first reported the committee’s interest in the downgrade.The unprecedented downgrade of the nation’s debt...

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., and his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., both blasted Tea Party critics on Monday for suggesting that the conservative movement with which they're both linked may have had something to do with America's recent credit downgrade by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's. The elder Paul, a longtime lawmaker, staunch libertarian, and presidential candidate, decried the allegations as an "attempt to scapegoat" Tea Party lawmakers. He pinned the downgrade on the Washington establishment. "This attempt to scapegoat folks who recognize that our debt is out of control and that we must change course should not be...

Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac FMCC.OB said on Monday it would need to ask for an additional $1.5 billion from taxpayers due to losses stemming from weak housing markets. The company reported a comprehensive loss in the second quarter of $1.1 billion. Despite income of $1 billion, the company registered a net worth deficit of $1.5 billion. That is in part because it was required to pay dividends worth $1.6 billion to the Treasury. As a result, the cost to taxpayers of its rescue declined by $100 million this quarter. Freddie Mac has drawn $65.2 billion from the government since...

A familiar air of indecision preceded President Obama’s pep talk to the nation. The first draft of his schedule for Monday contained no plans to comment on the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s. Then the White House announced that he would speak at 1 p.m. A second update changed that to 1:30. At 1:52, Obama walked into the State Dining Room to read his statement. Judging from the market reaction, he should have stuck with his original instinct. “No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country,”...

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama turns his attention to campaign politics Monday night, as he headlines two events for the Democratic National Committee and his re-election campaign. According to the White House schedule, the president first attends a gathering of approximately 140 guests at a private residence in the nation's capital. A DNC official says proceeds from the $15,000 per family gathering ...

he Dow fell more than 600 points Monday, and had one of its largest plunges immediately following President Obama’s speech in the afternoon regarding the downgrade on U.S. debt. In his first public statement following the S&P downgrade, President Obama attempted to encourage Americans that markets still regard the U.S. government debt as being the highest possible grade. President Obama said, "Markets will rise and fall. But this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country." Obama said he hoped the downgrade would give U.S....

It’s laugh-out-loud funny to hear the Obama administration’s all out assault on S&P’s math skills. According to the administration, if the downgrade in America’s credit rating is not the fault of the Tea Party (apparently for demanding the very spending cuts the political class’s refusal to make prompted the downgrade), it must be due to what the administration calls S&P’s “colossal” $2 trillion error — indicative, Treasury’s Turbo Tim Geithner told NBC News, of the rating agency’s “stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math.” It couldn’t possibly be President Obama’s outer-worldly spending spree, right? It couldn’t possibly...

<p>After Standard & Poor’s bit an appendage from the U.S.’s credit rating, the credit-rating firm is smelling blood in the water at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.</p> <p>Berkshire, which make big chunks of money from its insurance and reinsurance businesses, is spared the loss of its AA+ rating for now. But S&P marked Berkshire’s outlook down to “negative” from stable.” UPDATE: Buffett told Fox Business Network he isn’t surprised about S&P’s move. S&P had telegraphed plans to knock down insurers if the U.S. were downgraded.</p>

Power Play White House: Downgrade Doesn’t Matter, Unless It’s The Tea Party’s Fault By Chris Stirewalt Published August 08, 2011 | FoxNews.com * Print * Email * Share * Comments * * * * Text Size Team Obama Downplays Downgrade, But Blames Tea Party Too “Look at the history of this – the fact of the matter is that this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade. The Tea Party brought us to the brink of a default.” -- David Axelrod, top political consultant to President Obama, in an appearance on “Face the Nation.” The decision by Standard and Poor’s to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Government-controlled Freddie Mac is asking for $1.5 billion in additional federal aid after posting a loss this spring. The mortgage giant says it lost $4.69 billion, or $1.44 cents per share, in April-June quarter. That takes into account $1.6 billion in dividends paid to the Treasury Department. It compares with a loss of $6 billion, or $1.85 per share, during the same quarter in 2010. The government rescued McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae in September 2008 after massive losses on risky mortgages threatened to topple them. Standard & Poor's cited the link to...

CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney if President is lacking urgency after U.S. debt was downgraded. http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=12699&sitesection=ajc_top&VID=23499554