• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I was promised a recession.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Not all heroes wear capes.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Jimmy Fallows Had An Axe

Jimmy Fallows Had An Axe

by John Cole|  April 18, 201110:48 pm| 72 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links

FacebookTweetEmail

And gave the raters 40 whacks:

1) To repeat Clive Crook’s point, S&P knows nothing more about U.S. budget prospects than you or I do. They’re saying they have an opinion on the state of Congressional-White house dealings on the budget. Fine. Go on a talk show or start a blog.

2) To repeat James Galbraith’s different but also true point, as long as the U.S. government doesn’t tie itself up in debt-ceiling insanity, it is not going to default on dollar-based bonds. It can’t. It controls the “means of production” for the dollars to pay off those bonds. If you’re worried about inflation, fine. But that’s a different matter, with a lot of other variables that count for more than S&P’s feelings.

What I’d really like to know is who S&P likes in the Hornets-Lakers series, or this season of American Idol. Their views would carry just as much weight. Also I’d like to know why the news ecology treated this as such a big deal.

When I saw what he had done….

You finish it. My rhyming sucks. But Fallows has been on fire lately.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Fukushima Mon Amour
Next Post: Fallows, Redux: The GOP Health Care Plan–Worse Than The Chicken At Tresky’s »

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    It’s a mistake to dismiss the S&P ratings as inconsequential. Not because they’re accurate or made in good faith but because people trust them even when they shouldn’t. (Just like Beltway pundits!) The scaremongering is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    If Obama’s smart, he’ll use it as leverage to raise taxes. But more likely he’ll agree to cut SS/Medicare and settle for letting the Bush cuts expire.

  2. 2.

    Lolis

    April 18, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    This smells like a big scam. Cause a minor panic and savvy investors can buy lower than normal. I was pissed my stocks went down today.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 18, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    @Catperson: Fallows’ first point would also apply to you.

    Also too, I originally read Fallows as Fallon and I thought to myself, “It was only a matter of time.”

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    April 18, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    What does Jimmy Fallon have to do with this?
    Although I have to say the scene in Taxi where Gisele says, “In this skirt? I don’t think so.” was fucking awesome.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    April 18, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ask and ye shall…

  6. 6.

    Lolis

    April 18, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    @Catperson:

    Sure the president will suddenly oppose programs he has vocally supported within the past week and which are politically popular to appease Republicans. This makes total sense. His line “This will not happen while I am president” was just to prep everybody for his big cave. I don’t really mind people thinking Obama is a sellout but thinking he is dumb is just, well, dumb.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    April 18, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    @Catperson: “People” don’t fucking trust them.
    The money changers use them as an excuse to do whatever the fuck they were going to do anyway.

  8. 8.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    April 18, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    @Catperson:

    But more likely he’ll agree to cut SS/Medicare and settle for letting the Bush cuts expire.

    Likely because?

  9. 9.

    MikeJ

    April 18, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    @Corner Stone: Except the money changers didn’t do that. People who really buy and sell treasury notes drove the price up today, not down.

  10. 10.

    MikeJ

    April 18, 2011 at 11:05 pm

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Because the voices in catperson’s head said, “twas brillig and the black man sold us out!”

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    April 18, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    @MikeJ: And?
    People who “really buy and sell” already knew this was coming and whiplashed everybody else in the market.
    It’s not too swift to think the “real” buyers didn’t know this head fake was coming.

  12. 12.

    dr. bloor

    April 18, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    Ratings agencies…ratings agencies…where have I heard that phrase before….oh, yeah. “Mortgage backed securities.”

  13. 13.

    srv

    April 18, 2011 at 11:07 pm

    … I gave McMegan forty-one

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 18, 2011 at 11:07 pm

    Given S&P’s very poor performance on mortgage-backed “securities”, why should we listen? Obviously, the guys down at the Treasury Department didn’t slip the S&P guys some vig to juice up the bonds.

    These guys think “fiduciary” means “distract the client long enough to transfer every one of his dimes to the Cayman’s accounts.”

  15. 15.

    PsiFighter37

    April 18, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    John…where have the Chuck open threads gone? I’m one of the few readers who’s a huge fan of the show…

    Totally OT I know, but just wanted to put it out there.

  16. 16.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    April 18, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    @MikeJ: My suspicion. catperson should stick to twine and naps.

  17. 17.

    jl

    April 18, 2011 at 11:09 pm

    How do ratings agency make their money these days? Is the same as before the panic and Great Recession? Do they still make most of their money by pleasing big shot financial issuers?

    Looking into that might solve the mystery of nonsense ratings like this one.

  18. 18.

    Angela

    April 18, 2011 at 11:09 pm

    @dr. bloor: This.

  19. 19.

    Sharl

    April 18, 2011 at 11:11 pm

    Those rating agencies don’t get nearly the attention they deserve for their key role in bringing the House down. (Just one example)

    Excellent post Mr. Fallows – keep punching.

  20. 20.

    jl

    April 18, 2011 at 11:13 pm

    @jl:

    BTW, the questions in my previous comment are not rhetorical. I haven’t had time to follow what has happened to credit rating agencies in financial reform.

    I’m cynical enough to believe that, if nothing has changed, some issuers made it known that such a rating would be useful for industry lobbying purposes.

  21. 21.

    STUCKZILLA!

    April 18, 2011 at 11:14 pm

    WHADOO THEM GREEDY BASSARDS GOT TO WORRY ABOUT NOW, WITH AN ORANGE WINGNUT GREESING THEIR FILTHY GREESY PALMS; iNNY MORE REFORM TO WALL STREET AND FINNANCE IS ABOUT AZ LIKELY AS ME WINNING THE SPEILLING BEA.

    BWAAAA HAHAHAHA . GRAB YER WALLETS LIBTARDS AND PONY UP TO BABY JEEVUS. BWWAHHAAAA HAHHHAHHAH!!

  22. 22.

    kdaug

    April 18, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    Why isn’t obvious to everyone that Standard-ly Poor has a vested interest here?

  23. 23.

    ixnay

    April 18, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    Jimmy Fallows took an axe,
    and gave the raters forty whacks.
    And when he saw what he had done,
    He gave Paul Ryan forty-one.

    Apologies to Lizzie Borden

  24. 24.

    jl

    April 18, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    @kdaug: I have not followed this closely enough lately to know for sure. But it seems to me that a lot of important financial institutions want low interest rates and low inflation while they fight over the remaining bad debt. All of them think that they will be one one who will win and they want that hopefully eventually good paper worth a lot. And they have to finance carrying a lot of bad debt that they hope one day will still be good.

    And if the rating agency industry regulation is that same as before (nonexistent or corrupt) then the credit agencies’ masters are requesting some special ratings efforts for governments that need influencing.

    Amirite or wrong?

  25. 25.

    catclub

    April 18, 2011 at 11:23 pm

    @jl: 1. Nothing has happened to the rating agencies.

    2. The ratings agenicies were paid to give good ratings to MBS securities and they did. If the US Government bothered to pay them to rate US bonds, they would give those good ratings too.

    The response of posters HERE is much more intelligent than in the rest of the punditocracy. Quel surprise!

  26. 26.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Because he and the Dems have shown a pattern of ceding ground before negotiations even begin.

  27. 27.

    lamh34

    April 18, 2011 at 11:28 pm

    Looks like Jan brewer vetoed the Arizona Birther. It’s being reported on twitter,

  28. 28.

    STUCKZILLA!

    April 18, 2011 at 11:28 pm

    AND WHERZ THAT WANTON HUSSY SARAH, PROUD AND FLAT ON HER BACK. i SAW A BLACKSNAKE CRAWL BY A WHILE AGO WITH A SMILE ON ITS FACE, SO SHE GOOTA BE NEER.

  29. 29.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 11:28 pm

    @MikeJ: Jesus. WTF did I say to deserve that?

  30. 30.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    @jl: Interesting. How much bad debt are they really carrying at this point? I thought, perhaps wrongly, that TARP had taken most of it off their hands.

  31. 31.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    April 18, 2011 at 11:32 pm

    @Catperson: Ground ceded being equivalent to a bag of balls and a 12th round draft pick.

  32. 32.

    Martin

    April 18, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    @Catperson: Going straight to screaming that the Obama sky is falling. It didn’t fall in the budget negotiations. It didn’t fall in his speech. It’s not falling, okay? He’s not going to sell out Medicare/SS.

  33. 33.

    browser

    April 18, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    Jimmy Fallows had an axe
    And gave the raters 40 whacks
    And when he saw what he had done
    He gave the banksters 41.

    He knew that this was quite the task
    So of Matt Taibbi’s help he asked
    Matt chopped the bondsters into glue
    By clocking in at 42.

    But when they asked John Cole for help
    He muttered something ’bout a whelp
    “Rosie’s driving me up the wall,
    When I quit complaining, gimme a call.”

  34. 34.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    @Martin: I didn’t go straight to the sky is falling. Sky is falling would be cutting Medicare and SS AND renewing the Bush tax cuts. ;-)
    And that still wouldn’t justify going to “you must be a racist”.

  35. 35.

    kdaug

    April 18, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    @jl:

    Amirite or wrong?

    Dunno, don’t care. I tend to deal in ideas, not binary absolutes.

    But what I do find interesting is that not long ago, S&P were stamping “AAA” on mortgage-backed CDOs that they knew – or should have known – were complete shit. In some corners of the coherent collective, they were vilified, and in my opinion rightly so.

    And yet today S&P expresses their “concern” about our full faith and credit, and everyone from CNN to NPR to Fox rushes out to tell us how this means we simply must take “austerity measures.”

    To paraphrase a quote one of you jackals reminded me of a couple days ago –
    “The world rests on bullshit!”
    “Well, yes, ma’am, but what does the bullshit rest on?”
    “It’s bullshit all the way down!”

  36. 36.

    Steve

    April 18, 2011 at 11:39 pm

    I find it interesting that the White House’s response was basically defensive (along the lines of Fallows’ “S&P is just some guys with an opinion”) rather than aggressive and partisan (which would be something like “This is an early indication of what Republican brinkmanship on the debt ceiling threatens to do to our economy”). I don’t know if this is weakness or sound leadership. Maybe they don’t want to send any more negative signals to the market by escalating the rhetoric, or maybe they’re afraid that S&P could issue a politically-motivated statement that would make the WH look silly.

    If anyone is genuinely on the fence about what this means, it’s worth pointing out that S&P didn’t take this action in 2009 or 2010 when Obama was passing his big-spending stimulus and his civilization-devouring health care bill. No, they did it in 2011, which sort of refutes the Republican narrative that they have reintroduced an element of fiscal sanity to government. Instead, it’s their utter recklessness that causes the market to worry that these are the guys who might actually wreck the place.

  37. 37.

    Sharl

    April 18, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    While we’re momentarily stuck with these useless credit agencies, maybe there is some flicker of hope to be found in business journalism. From NYT’s article 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced:

    …
    And for the first time, a prize was awarded to reporting that did not appear in print: ProPublica’s online series “The Wall Street Money Machine,” which won for national reporting.
    …

  38. 38.

    NaveenM

    April 18, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    This is a tough nut to crack. The children (Republicans) are playing with matches (the debt-ceiling). The insurance company (S&P) thinks they need to raise rates because of this. The adults (Obama and the Dems) obviously wouldn’t play such childish games. But every time they take the matches away, the children don’t realize what a dangerous game they’re playing, and they find new matches to play with.

    At what point do you let the childish GOP start that fire so that they burn themselves and learn their lesson? Of course, they risk burning the whole house down in the process — and there in lies the dilemma.

  39. 39.

    General Stuck

    April 18, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    @Steve:

    The wingnuts fucking around with the CR and funding the US government is one thing, winger threats to default the US of A on it’s debt is quite another. Weakness? maybe. Probly scared shitless they will escalate the showdown even more with anything they say. This is a republican problem, and John Boehner is the cat on the hot seat to tame the passions of the idiot tea baggers playing with what amounts to political nuclear weapons./ The old guard is not up for this sort of dangerous bullshit and neither are their wealthy puppet masters. The fuckers funded a monster that has grown and wants to eat.

  40. 40.

    Catperson

    April 18, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @General Stuck: Agreed. But Boehner’s problem with the Teabaggers would be mitigated if he wasn’t so reticent to pass legislation with Dem votes.

  41. 41.

    kdaug

    April 18, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    @jl: Oh, and hey, jl – that was more harsh than it needed to be. Ain’t about you. It’s about angry kdaug.

    No need to be rude. Apologies.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 18, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    @kdaug: I prefer the turtles.

  43. 43.

    Redshift

    April 18, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    @Catperson: I don’t think “I’ll only accept a bill that can pass with only Republican votes” is going to go very far any more. I don’t think it was a ploy by Boehner; I think some of his caucus made their votes conditional on that, and then they (or others) didn’t deliver. So why should anyone listen if he (or they) demand it again?

  44. 44.

    General Stuck

    April 18, 2011 at 11:58 pm

    @Catperson:

    But Boehner’s problem with the Teabaggers would be mitigated if he wasn’t so reticent to pass legislation with Dem votes.

    This is true, and no majority in the House wants to have to depend on the other party to pass it’s legislation. Not in our two party republic system. What we have in practical effect is a problem where the only solution from disaster is the GOP forming something like a Parliamentarian style of coalition governing. And doing That is most likely a personal pol death knell for Boehner to do, with the alternative of destroying ours and the worlds economies. I am almost feel sorry for the orange fucker, not quite though.

  45. 45.

    Steve

    April 18, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    @General Stuck: I personally do not think the WH believes there is an actual risk of the Republicans failing to raise the debt ceiling. There aren’t enough lunatic freshmen for that. Even the question of whether they will screw around with it for a while (cf. Cantor’s trial balloon from last week) is being rapidly settled. There is a school of thought that says the goal here should be to extract the maximum political benefit from the existence of the GOP lunatic fringe.

  46. 46.

    Catperson

    April 19, 2011 at 12:02 am

    @Redshift: Not sure what you mean. That non-TP Repubs said they’d only vote for the budget if it was Repub votes that carried it?
    Either way, you’re right that Boehner should have learned a lesson from it. I continue to be surprised by the hubris shown by these deadenders.
    I believe that Boehner is being more reasonable behind closed doors but the constant public chest-beating just sets up a “we can’t be seen to lose” dynamic that leads to bad decisions.

  47. 47.

    Catperson

    April 19, 2011 at 12:05 am

    @Steve:

    There is a school of thought that says the goal here should be to extract the maximum political benefit from the existence of the GOP lunatic fringe.

    This. It’s a constant game of chicken.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    April 19, 2011 at 12:09 am

    @lamh34: ZOMG! Brewer is in on it!

  49. 49.

    El Cid

    April 19, 2011 at 12:13 am

    Krugman notes that after S&P’s dour announcement about how OMG they will take their AAA back, US bond prices went up.

  50. 50.

    General Stuck

    April 19, 2011 at 12:16 am

    @Steve:

    I don’t think there is a chance of the worst happening either. But there are enough true believer crazy tea tards to make it a close vote (for a gop majority), unless Obama really gives up a lot, which of course is funding his HCR. Obama can’t politically give in much on what amounts to a form of partisan pol terrorism. He can give Boehner something like what JFK gave Khruschev, or obsolete missiles in Turkey scheduled already for decommission, but not the dem party crown jewels.

    And there is the likely uncertainty and market instability that will occur, even if they don’t mean it and take it to the brink. It makes me so mad when I think about it sometimes, that the oppo party has come to this sorry state, that I wouldn’t mind seeing them arrested for treason, or at least depraved stupidity.

  51. 51.

    Steve

    April 19, 2011 at 12:18 am

    @El Cid: I’m not sure you can really tell anything by a few hours of bond prices (if the prices had moved in the other direction, would we conclude the announcement was a huge deal?) but Krugman’s bit on the Japanese bond market was awfully convincing. For those who missed it, he pointed out that S&P downgraded Japan’s bond rating in 2002, and all the people who assumed interest rates would shoot through the roof as a result lost their shirts, because it simply never happened.

    McMegan swiftly disposed of this argument today, however, by noting that we cannot afford to wait to see if interest rates go up, because once they do that means we are already in crisis. So we must, instead, listen to our magic beans and assume interest rates are going way up, because the price of waiting for actual evidence is too high!

  52. 52.

    Suffern ACE

    April 19, 2011 at 12:26 am

    @Steve:

    I’m not sure you can really tell anything by a few hours of bond prices.

    Nope. Nor is a 1% change in the S&P worth the ink spilled. It seems to have done that dozens of times in the past three years alone.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    April 19, 2011 at 12:40 am

    @Suffern ACE: Shit, it fell almost 3% in 2 days after the tsunami. 1% drops happen all the time. The market is emo. All investors cope.

  54. 54.

    El Cid

    April 19, 2011 at 12:49 am

    @Steve: You may not be able to tell a lot by a few hours of bond prices, unless you want to scream that OMG TEH DEFFSIT GON KILL US NOW THE BONDS GON FALL WE ALL DIE.

    What I think the main point of the snippet was that an announcement treated by the major US news media (and listen to the radio or see it on the TV box) as a thunderclap of God heralding investment death was apparently not seen as an urgent call in the purchases of bonds.

    If it’s not reasonable to conclude that a few hours’ positive uptick in bond prices are meaningful, it should be equally reasonable to conclude that there was as yet little evidence of market following of the S&P announcement.

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    April 19, 2011 at 1:16 am

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):

    Ground ceded being equivalent to a bag of balls and a 12th round draft pick.

    I think that comment was just a bit too much inside baseball for my taste.

  56. 56.

    Roger Moore

    April 19, 2011 at 1:23 am

    @kdaug:

    But what I do find interesting is that not long ago, S&P were stamping “AAA” on mortgage-backed CDOs that they knew – or should have known – were complete shit

    No “or should have known” about it. There’s the famous quote about giving a CDO a rating if it were put together by cows. They knew damn well they were rating shit, but they were being paid to give it a good rating so that’s what they were going to do. That’s what happens when the ratings are paid for by the issuers, not the buyers.

  57. 57.

    Comrade Mary

    April 19, 2011 at 1:24 am

    @Martin: This little scene from a commenter at TPM is great.

    However, the bill may be veto-proof because it passed with a large margin of votes and legislators may yet try to override the veto.

  58. 58.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    April 19, 2011 at 1:25 am

    @Martin:
    The market is emo? Just a minute, I thought the financial Wall Street fuckers were all macho tough guys who eat raw steak and threatened to go Galt and take over all sorts of shitty low paying jobs not too long ago?

  59. 59.

    Martin

    April 19, 2011 at 1:46 am

    @Comrade Mary: Ha! That’s brilliant. I wonder if any of the douchenozzles in AZ realize that most Kenyans don’t get circumcised until they’re between 10-20. Plenty of time to have your white mom haul you back to the states to get the deed done and eligible to be President.

    What a bunch of fucking loons.

  60. 60.

    Martin

    April 19, 2011 at 1:49 am

    @Amanda in the South Bay: Yeah, it turns out that they’re all WATBs that complain about the vintage of Dom that they serve in the legacy seats at Yankee Stadium. So yeah, emo as hell. But what do I care, I was up 1.5% today.

  61. 61.

    ranger3

    April 19, 2011 at 2:08 am

    Lakers are in trouble. Don’t know if the Hornets have the juice to win this thing but, damn… Chris Paul was legit in game 1!

    Vegas had the Hornets at 6.5 to 1 dogs Monday afternoon. Now it’s 5.5 to 1. Seems like some sharp money is moving to NOLA. I think the Lakers can still adjust and get through the 1st round. But they are not going to 3peat.

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne

    April 19, 2011 at 2:51 am

    @Comrade Mary:

    They just can’t wait to get a look at Obama’s dick, can they? Seriously, it’s the only logical explanation for putting that weird-ass circumcision provision in there.

  63. 63.

    Mary

    April 19, 2011 at 7:24 am

    @Roger Moore: I think you may be giving the rating agencies too much credit. I think it’s entirely possible that they’re really just not very bright.

  64. 64.

    rickstersherpa

    April 19, 2011 at 7:30 am

    1. The SP “going negative” on U.S. credit rating and the play it got in the U.S. economy was to serve as more support for the meme that “the U.S. must cut its entitlement programs to reign in spending, thereby immiserating about 90% of the population, and cut taxes on the rich so they can keep all the money.” Then it won’t be like those terrible European social democracies. No it can be like the 3rd world kleptocracies like Paraguay, Columbia, and Peru.

    2. Interest rates on 10 years treasuries actually fell on this news. If there was a real risk of default, or even of inflation, they would rise. But the market viewed the warning not as sign of future default, but as future “austerity,” slower economic growth, continued high unemployment, and further deflation in real median income of wages and salaries. Certainly Government Fiscal spending, state and Federal, is being reduced, and come January the social security FICA tax goes back to 6.5% from 4.5% increase. Meanwhile, the rise in gas prices and food in tamping demend down on other goods. Like last year, there may be well a slow down, in what is a rather weak recovery anyway.

    3. Earnings have been surprising on the downside this quarter, after a long winning streak. Although the inflation hawks and bonds vigilante sightings will still dominate the news cycle through the debt ceiling debate, I expect the economic stories in the late summer and fall will be full of downsize surprises. And unfortunately, this is not good news for the President.

  65. 65.

    Alex S.

    April 19, 2011 at 7:53 am

    I don’t know… rating agencies should reflect the news, not make them. To treat them like the new Greenspan-like oracles is very questionable since the Lehman Brothers collapse.

  66. 66.

    OzoneR

    April 19, 2011 at 8:20 am

    @Catperson:

    But more likely he’ll agree to cut SS/Medicare and settle for letting the Bush cuts expire.

    Which, quite frankly, you’re going to have to do if you’re going to solve the deficit. Raising taxes alone isn’t going to solve the problem unless you really loot everyone’s income and that’ll cause a revolution Egypt-style.

  67. 67.

    AnnaN

    April 19, 2011 at 9:21 am

    …
    And when Fallows saw what he had done, he gave Paul Ryan forty-one.

    Very familiar with the original ditty as we used to sing it while jumping rope during recess at Immaculate Heart of Mary.

  68. 68.

    hippobippo

    April 19, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    …i said “gimme that axe–it looks like fun!”

    didn’t S&P along with Moody’s do their part to start this mess by slapping “AAA” on empty pizza boxes?

    i think that it’s frightening that a private entity should possess this sort of power. seems to me an ideal vehicle for corruption–a ferrari. kinda like the national Ds and Rs controlling the presidential debates?

  69. 69.

    HyperIon

    April 19, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    @STUCKZILLA!: FYI BIRDZILLA never affected a hick accent. Try harder.

  70. 70.

    Bill Arnold

    April 19, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    @rickstersherpa:

    But the market viewed the warning not as sign of future default, but as future austerity,…

    That was my reading too – that “the market” saw S&P’s report as causing increasing odds that the political leadership of the U.S. would do further damage (short term, maybe long term) to the economy.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Balloon Juice » Savaged By A Dead Sheep says:
    April 22, 2011 at 9:04 am

    […] That would be James Fallows, suffering the blistering assault of one Megan McArdle over this piece, the one John lauded here. […]

  2. Savaged By A Dead Sheep « The Inverse Square Blog says:
    April 22, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    […] That would be James Fallows, suffering the blistering assault of one Megan McArdle over this piece, the one John lauded here. […]

Primary Sidebar

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

2023 Pet Calendars

Pet Calendar Preview: A
Pet Calendar Preview: B

*Calendars can not be ordered until Cafe Press gets their calendar paper in.

Recent Comments

  • Jay on War for Ukraine Day 346: A Brief Sunday Night Post (Feb 5, 2023 @ 10:12pm)
  • Citizen Alan on Medium Cool – Who Almost Got the Part Instead? (Feb 5, 2023 @ 10:11pm)
  • Jay on War for Ukraine Day 346: A Brief Sunday Night Post (Feb 5, 2023 @ 10:09pm)
  • Citizen Alan on Medium Cool – Who Almost Got the Part Instead? (Feb 5, 2023 @ 10:08pm)
  • JaySinWA on Medium Cool – Who Almost Got the Part Instead? (Feb 5, 2023 @ 10:08pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Favorite Dogs & Cats
Classified Documents: A Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Front-pager Twitter

John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
ActualCitizensUnited

Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice   

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!