http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-loses-A...set=&ccode=

screw s&p. their crappy job of rating mortgage backed securities is one of the reasons the economy fell off the cliff.

now we're supposed to trust them as they just cost the american taxpayers tons of money due to likely interest rate increases.

the ratings agencies are just corporate madoff's.

Look for Turbo Tax Timmy to be sh!t canned next week.

So I see that Rubio is a concern for the Dems.

Todays paper reports that S&P made a 2 Trillion mistake in it rateing calculation. After their steller performance in the Bush crash, I wonder how anyione can pay any attention to them.

Dave, the S.P said before the debt ceiling debate that they wanted to see 4 trillion in cuts over ten years, we only cut 2.5 trillion which is mostly back loaded. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, that 2.5 trillion would have been one trillion.

Not so much the math was wrong the bone of contention was assumptions on the economy that S&P modified after the Treasury Dept went nuts.

Late on Friday, the Treasury said the rating agency's debt calculations were wrong by some $2 trillion. S&P confirmed it changed its economic assumptions after discussion with the Treasury Department but said it did not affect its decision to downgrade. "We take our responsibilities very seriously, and if at the end of our analysis the committee concludes that a rating isn't where we believe it should be, it's our duty to make that call," David Beers, head of sovereign ratings at S&P, told Reuters.

The theme running throughout S&P's analysis is the breakdown in the ability of the Democratic and Republican parties to govern effectively. The agency said that policymaking and political institutions had weakened in the past few months "to a degree more than we envisioned." This has major implications for the nation's budget and debt problems.

The S&P offices should be bulldozed, and every one of their chief officers should have his or her ass kicked half way around the block.

Their rating system is a disgrace.

Almost as disgraceful as our Congress and Executive branch........but I digress.

You may remember that the plan Obama was pushing was a 4 Trillion cut. That was scuttled because the tea party republicans would rather see us crippled than put the tax rate back where it was 10 years ago - when we had a surplus.

Had Bush left things alone and began using the surplus to pay down the debt we would not be in this fix. Instead he started two wars and a big new prescription program with no funding for any of them. Then he cut taxes - primarily for the wealthy. The dems like to tax and spend, but in recent years the republicans liked to spend and borrow. Both get blame for the deficit which has been growing since before Reagan, but the failure to solve the current mess rests firmly with the republican’s unwillingness to tax their base.


We can eliminate the problem quite rapidly if we make the cuts Obama and Boehner agreed to and put the tax rate back where it was. The only "crisis" here is due to pure political posturing. Why are the Republicans so unwilling to make any sacrifices for their country?

http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/site/our-businesses/mcgraw-hill-financial



Here's another one of McGraw Hill's companys to go along with Standard & Poor, seems alittle cozy to me.

Dave, the libs and some moderates said they would never approve of Obama's plan, due to the cuts of Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention a restriction of cost of living increases and a increase in Medicare. This all but seals Hussein's re-election, he will be forever remembered as the biggest failure in the history of the presidency.

The libs didn't like the big cuts but Obama was statesman enough to actually go against his base and propose those cut anyway. It was the republicans that rejected any form of compromise. Can you show me anyway in which the Rs compromised?

As to whether or not he gets reelected that's debatable. If the economy stays in the tank and the Rs nominate a moderate he will not be reelected. If the Rs nominate a nutcase like Bachman or Palin America will hold it's collective noses and reelect Obama.

He has been a disappointment to most of us, but not an embarrassment like Bush. Let’s not forget who started this mess. It was not Obama. He has not cleaned it up as well as we would like but we have gone form, losing 700,000 jobs a month to breakeven, from GM and America's biggest banks on the verge of collapse to where they are turning a profit again. We were on the brink of a total collapse of our economy. Thank you GWB! Now we have an anemic economy. I see that as a major improvement. I can only thank god we didn’t elect someone who would have let America slide into another great depression.

I said this when he was elected and I will say it again. Whoever get elected they have a good chance of becoming a one term president. We have massive financial problems, two or three wars, with others looming and a complete incompetent congress. Whoever gets the job will absolutely have to make major cuts to popular programs and or increase taxes. American’s are way to selfish to reelect anyone who might ask them for any sacrifice.

You guys seriously think making the bush era tax cuts expire would do ANYTHING to our deficit? I honestly don't even care about those tax cuts, let em expire, but that will not even put a dent in our problem.

"According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years."

$680 BILLION over 10 years... so what that's $68 Billion a year in additional revenue from taxes... wow that really seems like a lot of money when compared to the $4.1B a day that is currently being added to our deficit under the current administration. NOT

Bush spent A LOT of money. Obama spends more than double that. We're all screwed no matter who's in office unless they do some serious spending cuts.

What's embarrassing is electing a POS based on the color of his skin...How's that working ?

Wha't really embarrassing is Americans who spew above comments.... To make excuses for their party's loss in the last election. McCain/Palin? Really? Not sure that was even an option.

I guess when your side wins an election it's because people voted with their brains and when the other side wins it's somehow based on..... ?

I'm no lib and didn't vote for Slowbama but 8 years of Shrub put the R's in a place that can't be dug out of easily. Now, I don't see either of the two parties as much of an option.

Vasiliy

Dont know where you got your data but the first hit I got when Googling this came up

“The health care programs are the main drivers of that growth,” the CBO said, responsible for 80 percent of the projected rise in spending on those programs over the next 25 years.

Tax collections could keep pace with those costs if Congress permitted the George W. Bush tax cuts to expire on schedule in 2012 and allowed the alternative minimum tax to hit millions of additional households, the CBO said. But under current tax policies, the CBO said, tax collections would barely cover the cost of the health and retirement programs alone by 2035.

“If policymakers are to put the nation on a sustainable budgetary path, they will need to let revenues increase substantially as a percentage of GDP, decrease spending significantly from projected levels, or adopt some combination of those two approaches,” the CBO report said.

The report cautions that taking either action now “would probably slow the economic expansion. However, the sooner that medium— and longterm changes to spending and revenues are agreed on— and the sooner they are implemented after the period of economic weakness — the smaller will be the damage to the economy from rising federal debt.”

And the economic damage of inaction could be huge, the CBO said. If current policies are unchanged and the national debt continues to grow, the U.S. economic output could be as much as 6 percent smaller than current projections by 2025 and as much as 18 percent smaller by 2035.

Despite the growing danger, both major political parties have declared their resistance to the types of policy changes that would be necessary to rebalance the federal budget, at least as part of the debt-reduction talks currently under way between Vice President Biden and six lawmakers from both parties.

Democrats have ruled out major changes to health and retirement programs, while Republicans have ruled out any increase in tax revenue, a position Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) emphasized Wednesday.

“I think I can safely say, this Congress is not going to raise taxes, so why are we still talking about it?” McConnell told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “So, look, taxes aren’t gonna be raised.”

How about getting the 51% that freeload off this country to chip in something? Is that asking too much?

Yes.

http://news.yahoo.com/usps-posts-3-1-billion-loss-q3-warns-145707721.html



Here's one agency that needs to be phased out and turned over to private enterprise.