Thursday, August 04, 2011

Downgrade! Downgrade! Downgrade!

What an epic non-event.

So the "game of chicken" was played to the end and what do we get for all the strife and tumult?

Nothing more than further confirmation that our legislators (and executive branch) in Washington D.C. are a bunch of big government policy sissies.

Like a gaggle of peacocks, the Feds put on quite a show when agitated but once the going got really tough, they cut and run.

$917 billion over a decade back-loaded so as to mostly take effect after 2013 (or even 2016)?

Another trillion (and change) of cuts over that same period left to be decided by some congressional super committee?

What a ridiculous crock?

This is nothing but a charade, not so surprising I suppose given this "fake it till you make it" era we find ourselves in, but still what a phony baloney outcome.

S&P was looking for at least a $4 trillion debt reduction plan and as the outcome came nowhere near that mark, I say downgrade! Downgrade! Downgrade!

The American people deserve a good downgrade.

Like a good swift punch in the face, cutting the credit rating of the U.S. government would provide an abrupt and sensational burst of painful truth to be felt in all corners of the economy.

No individual, household or firm would be spared and a sense of real outrage would be shared and immeadietly directed at the perpetrators of generations of policy malfeasence and grotesque tax and spend bloat.

But the outrage would not stop with policy junkies in Washington DC.

In all likelihood a downgrade (and the shared pain) would work to force Americans to face the truth about the dire economic predicment they are in and moreover, the fact that they themselvs are culpable for having fallen prey to snake oil pushing policy wonks with a penchant for providing cradel-to-grave "solutions".

Kicking the can down the road may have provided an adequate resolution for this episode of political theater, but the real economy and your future remains under siege of big government debt overload.

Bring on the downgrade!