Credit Crunch V2.0

[Keith Jordan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14428930

S&P the credit ratings agency has downgraded the American Government from the top AAA status to AA+ amid concerns that you guys are a) running a budget deficit beyond your means and b) your politics is too opportunistic and short sighted!!

This, combined with the solvency issues in Italy, Spain, Greece and Ireland and the UK's exposure to them via its banks combined with our own budget deficit smell of credit crunch version 2 coming along soon!

Could this be the end of the West and the rising of China as the worlds new super power? I think so.

[Meandthem]

"You'll never walk alone!"
Us, poor bastards, will follow as Lemmings over the steep...

[pastchristmas]

It almost gives credence to the belief that the end of the world is coming, whether it be the end times spoken of in the Bible, or the end of the Mayan calendar or whatever.

The world is so dependent on money that it can indeed cause everything to be flipped upside down. Countries like China indeed possess the resources that could make them the next world power. If things come full circle and printed currency isn't worth wiping ones butt on, then the Golden Rule will take effect, i.e., "They who have the gold make the rules."

I am actually more shocked than anything that America's credit rating was so perfect for so long. Aren't we known the world over for stiffing several countries out of billions of dollars each day? How does that ever warrant a perfect rating?

[Keith Jordan]

Yes, your days of getting the best rating are over with a budget deficit like that financed by the rest of the world. You guys are living beyond your means with that armed forces of yours in particular!!

Given how much China has invested in American debt I think there is a conspiracy here to default and pay nothing back to the Chinese so as to set them back financially and therefore militarily/politically. China is the worlds next superpower and will assume that position over the next 5-15 years. America don't like that. I believe that is why America has a big budget deficit... to be able to sell debt to the Chinese then default after taking all their money!

I am surprised you got away with it for so long!

[nosaj]

What a strange country. They pay the least amount of taxes in the Western world and refuse to pay more. Hell, being able to claim mortgage payments at tax time is insane...I want to move to America...or at least buy some land with a mortgage...but, the "mort" pat scares me in the French sense.

[pastchristmas]

I think Keith makes a good point. It could be a tactic to cause China to be saddled with a butt-load of unpaid markers.

Sadly though, this is also something that the US has been doing for a long time to stiff people they owe, both on a government and an individual level.

It actually reminds me of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Thousands of men fought for what they believed in while being promised, the whole time, that they would eventually be paid their wages in a lump sum that they could use to buy land to homestead after the fight was over.

When it came time to be paid up, the US Treasury delayed paying these people as long as they possibly could while they cranked out paper money left and right. Inflation got so bad that the dollar wasn't worth but a fraction of what it was just a couple years before, when the promissory notes were issued. When the dollar was inflated so badly that it was worth only one tenth of what it was originally, the Treasury then decided to pay the soldiers off in full, conning them out of what they were depending on to get through the rest of their days. It was a sorry loophole that ended up being a slap in the face of many brave men.

This is one of the more shameful parts of our history that the schoolbooks do not tell about, and there have been several more instances that the US has found ways to welch on debts owed. If this is what is going to happen with China, it might bring about the very apocalypse that millions of people are dreading.

It is also one of the things that, at times, makes me be ashamed to be an American.

[nosaj]

Boy, things have been quite volatile for some time.