I’m not sure I take the S&P downgrade that seriously, but I suspect it does rattle some of our Galtian overlords. Commenter PurpleGirl wrote something at First Draft a few days ago that stuck with me and seems appropriate now:
In the show Caberet there is a scene wherein Isherwood is out for a Sunday afternoon with an industrialist friend and at the country beer garden they hear a cute blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in a brown uniform sing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” Most of the crowd of people at the beer garden join in singing.
Later, as they get into the industrialist’s car to leave, Isherwood says, “Still think you can control them?”
The German elites found they couldn’t control the Nazis and they were trapped with Hitler. Wall Street/the Koch Brothers et al. can’t control their puppets either. The damages will be different but there will be damage.
I know that even the liberal S&P blamed both parties and that this is good news for Rick Perry blah blah blah…the Galtians know the teahadists did this.
Jenny
Boehner did say he got everything he wanted, so this downgrade is his.
beltane
Is this the Night of Long Knives in reverse? Why does the media keep shilling for the teabaggers if the Galtians have no more use for their useful idiots?
arguingwithsignposts
I thought everything was good news for John McCain?
beltane
Over at Calculated Risk I see that the Italians have convinced the ECB to buy their government bonds. I wonder what the convincing entailed.
jl
@2 because the teabaggers a valuable demographic to keep, because they will buy anything, anything at all, at any price, at any price at all?
Including connection to reality, sanity, their health, their lives and their savings?
Baud
From TPM:
This is really odd. The tax cuts expire automatically. They only way they can be extended is if the House, Senate, and Obama agree to extend them.
Dexter
Doesn’t look like that if you go by MSM narrative.
JGabriel
@Jenny:
Boehner said he got 98% of everything he wanted.
Obviously the downgrade is because he didn’t get the last two percent.
(/wingnut)
.
Jenny
@beltane:
Silvio’s bunga bunga parties.
jl
@6 Baud: My read of their statement is that the case where everyone will find some way to extend them, regardless of what one or two of them says otherwise, is exactly what S&P thinks will happen.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: They are calling bullshit on that, and they are probably correct.
JGabriel
@beltane:
Because they don’t advertise to Galtians. I mean, do you really think a billionaire is gonna buy a mail order Shake Weight(r)?
.
beltane
@Jenny: That’s what I was thinking. Last night I was telling my husband there was no way the Italians were going to allow themselves to be looted the way the Greeks and Irish were. If Bunga Bunga works, so be it.
Baud
@Suffern ACE: I don’t see any basis for thinking it’s correct, unless you think all the parties will reach some kind of master deal in an election year.
Yevgraf
Conservative fix is in, frankly calling for the lining up on a wall of the entire S&P board of directors and executives. Since when should sovereign debt be so utterly dependent on the spurious opinion of unelected, unaccountable private analysts?
Dexter
On the second thought, are the Galtians trying to destroy the Teabaggers in a roundabout way? The statement does look like they are entirely blaming the Teabaggers for the debt ceiling drama. Wonder when MSM will get the clue.
Cat Lady
That song and scene was critical to the movie, but the more important one was Money. The Third Reich is long gone, but money’s still making the world go round. It will be interesting to watch the other money boys engineer Koch’s tea party work-around.
Yevgraf
PS – S&P just spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars without so much as a congressional vote.
Suck it, teatards – there’s your “taxation without representation”.
jl
You have to ignore big chunks of, or willfully misread, the S&P statement to miss the fact that S&P is pointing out some big policies that teabaggers will die for as part of the reason for the downgrade.
How will our worthless national affairs press deal with that? Will the clichébots drone one, be reprogrammed for complete goobledygook? Or what?
I will monitor the situation from the Balloon Juice media monitor (which is the best place because it not only tells a person when to start drinking, but has good recommendations for the black out beverage of choice).
lamh34
CNN LIVE NOW: John Chambers, head of sovereign ratings for S&P, on CNN with AC 360
lamh34
Ughhh. This dude right here. Is he still running for President?
Newt Gingrich on twitter:
Racist fat, fuck!!!
Montysano
Just a couple of weeks ago, I got “Cabaret” from Netflix and then nagged my wife and daughter (neither of whom had ever seen it) into watching it. I love, love that movie, and the “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” scene is still chilling.
I was amazed to read the other day (at Frum’s blog, of all places) that the DOC revised the GDP numbers for 3rd and 4th quarter of 2008, from -.5% and -4.0% to -4.0% and 9.0% respectively. Sweet Jeebus, those are depression level plunges. No wonder things are fucked up.
Dexter
@lamh34:
Yes. AFAIK.
Villago Delenda Est
While it’s an interesting attempt at a parallel, the fact is, the teabaggers do not have a charismatic public speaker anywhere near the level of Adolph Hitler to lead their pathetic little crybaby movement to the next level. The asshat in the tricorn is, as they say, no Hitler, at least not in public speaking ability. Eric “I am wussy hear me squeak” Cantor isn’t that, either.
Dennis SGMM
I asked this on another thread but it seems to have been dead-threaded. How will the downgrade affect big business’ financial support of the Republicans?
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think the downgrade is a slap at the teahadists by the powers that be (money). They see that the teahadists are willing to drive the economy and country off of the cliff, which doesn’t make for a stable business model where the powers that be can
continue to bilk the people and governmentmake money. I think the rich right were attracted to the teahadists while they thought they could manipulate them but now they know that they are out of any kind of control or reason.With quite a few of the teahadist reps and senators saying that they don’t care if they are one-term wonders, this is setting up to be a very interesting election season for 2012. I’m seeing the possibility of a very fractured Republican party ahead. Asshats like Armey and his FreedumbWerks teabagger astroturf organization are not going to toe the party line when there are idiots on the right that they can inflame and milk for money. This is going to infuriate the big money on the right and I bet there will be a huge fight over the party between them.
What a mess we are in. The right is in an even bigger mess, which is a good thing right now. How it farms out is what is going to be something to see.
Dexter
@Dennis SGMM:
Anyone who has CDS or one of those fancy new financial contracts that has a some trigger based on the downgrade is probably going to be reamed. They are definitely not going to be amused. The best indicator is probably going to be the fund raising numbers of various GOP presidential candidates, RNCC, RNSC and RNC.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: O.K. no one is going to run on raising taxes, except maybe rasing them on the rich. I assume that the extension is going to be handled in a lame duck session. But if they’re secretly planning to raise taxes in the lame duck session, but running on not doing that, why should S&P base its analysis on that?
My guess is that the Reps will just run on “This was cut because Obama isn’t an AAA president and I will be”, and the goofballs will lap it up. But politically, whose going to run on “I will restore our AAA rating by rasing revenue”? I don’t know if the “emotional appeal” of being an “AAA Country” is strong enough for someone to say “It’s worth paying taxes for.”
jrg
If I knew it was going to be this kind of party, I’d have stuck my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Cat Lady
@Villago Delenda Est:
They really are only missing that one person though, for now. It’s that precarious.
LosGatosCA
Lower rating = higher interest rates = more tax free income for the landed aristocracy.
I’m having a hard time seeing the downside for the Galtian overlords.
jl
If by ‘big money’ you mean big shot individuals or corporate interests with access to enough cash to affect an election, then I think that this is not a united group.
You have the too big to fail financial interests. If the economy cannot be made to roar back fast and far enough to make all their bad securities good again, then they want low inflation and very low interest rates while they fight over who can grab enough of the cashflows to make they paper they hold good.
Then you have the mainstreet and industrial companies that actually do and make useful things. I think they want growth in demand, though many of them think that it cannot be done through government expenditure at all, unless of course it is very wise and prudent government expenditure specifically targeted at them.
Then there are energy interests, and they want growth to support energy prices. Except the Koch brothers are mostly energy, but they may be nuts and I do not know how their business interests tie into their crazy ideology. I guess they don’t care as long as there is deregulation of everything so they can live like free rich men and eat what they kill (or eat what they can catch, not sure they go to the trouble of killing it first).
beltane
Dennis asks a good question. How badly do the Republicans have to hurt their benefactors’ bottom line before support is cut off? And can we be seeing the beginnings of a civil war between the different factions of Galtians? The Koch Brothers may be ideologues but the rest of them just want to make a lot of money. I would think that the latter faction is more powerful, but I could be wrong.
jl
But bondholders just lost a lot asset value with that rise in interest rates. Whether the net from a downgrade comes out positive for a particular person or organization depends on what they are using bonds for.
LosGatosCA
@Baud:
The only way they will expire is if the House, Senate, and Obama agree to let them expire.
FTFY.
Nagonnahapin – more interest on Federal debt, less taxes on other income.
It’s a Galtian paradise you can depend on these clowns to not screw with it.
Dennis SGMM
@Dexter:
Thank you. From my point of view the entire Republican party is responsible for birthing and then encouraging the teahadists. OTOH, the R’s are masters of shifting the blame. I doubt that the monied interests will be able to quit them after their life long love affair.
Baud
@Suffern ACE: I don’t think anyone will care about the AAA rating in itself. It’s really only a question of how it will effect the markets – freak out or collective yawn?
MazeDancer
That’s from a nice diary at GOS live blogging Bloomberg TV’s live coverage of the downgrade. Apparently all the economists think it’s ridiculous.
WereBear
Does this push investers away from bonds and into the stock market?
Comrade Kevin
Does Cole have a quota for each of his FP posters to use the phrase “Galtian overlords” a minimum number of times?
Arundel
A lot of the MSM reports I’ve seen are blaming the debt for the downgrade, not Republican intransigence.
Is this the Shock Doctrine in action, or what?
Suffern ACE
@WereBear: Most likely, it pushes them into cash in banks.
Suffern ACE
@Arundel: Well it’s better than blaming “spending.”
dollared
OK gang, two things:
1. The teahadists may or may not be out of control. They don’t matter, however. Do you seriously think Wall Street doesn’t control Eric Cantor? Seriously?
Conclusion: S&P is part of the cover for the Republicans to give in. Obama will get his top 2% income tax gain. The crumbs will be granted. But I’m betting carried interest won’t be touched, and capital gains will be no higher than 20%. And the increase in tax rates will be very, very gradual. God knows what Obama will have to give up for even these crumbs.
2. Downgrade will cost nothing. Interests rates will be the same or lower 60 days from now. Where is the safe money going to go?
Felanius Kootea
@Suffern ACE: Oh they’re blaming spending too. And if the White House doesn’t get out ahead of this that’s what the general public will believe, not the point S&P made about tea party intransigence.
Frankensteinbeck
A couple of people have mentioned this, and I want to repeat and reinforce it:
Do not put ‘The Koch Brothers’ and ‘Wall Street’ in the same group. Rich people are just as capable of being completely fucking nuts as regular people, and the Koch Brothers are completely fucking nuts. They love the Tea Party and will certainly continue to bankroll them. They wanted the default. They believe the fed is a Jewish banking conspiracy, for pity’s sake. They think sokkilist anarchists have invaded every level of government. The ones who haven’t existed since the 1920s, not modern sokkilists. They are the pure and unadulterated Teabaggers, and their belief is more important than their money. Until now their beliefs and their money have gone hand in hand, so other rich people went ‘Hear hear!’ Now, hopefully, the business community has realized that they are not fellow travelers.
debbie
A bigger danger than a charismatic leader is the lack of long-term vision. Like 1930s Germany, people now are primarily focused on short-term expediency and immediate advantage. The inability (or refusal) to see consequences of an action are what really led to the Third Reich and will be what undoes this country.
I’m in the middle of reading “In the Garden of Beasts,” the story of the US Ambassador to Germany in the mid-1930s who witnessed the rise of Hitler and the N@zis. He never saw any of that coming and refused to believe that people could be as misguided and as evil as they in fact turned out to be. It was militant ignorance that enabled them in Germany, and it’s militant ignorance that gives the Tea Party its oversized influence today.
Alwhite
@Frankensteinbeck:
Funny, I think the Koch Bros are actually communist conspirators. What they are doing will lead a majority of people into poverty, believing that capitalism does not provide a path out of poverty and that they have nothing left to lose. Where else will they go but to communism? Its just a matter of how long it takes to completely destroy the middle class in America.
The Raven
I’m not sure how much of a future the Tea Party Republicans have; their approval ratings are incredibly low. It may be they will just slink back to their corners.
But the Wall Street Republican/conservative Democratic coalition will go on and on. That, I think, is the long-term enemy.
We need to make the case for Keynsian economic policies. The right has all the good stories, but they’re propaganda for policies that fail, just as the communists had good stories, but couldn’t actually create and run a government that delivered freedom and equality.
Keynsian policies work, but we don’t have stories to tell, so politicians can’t campaign on them. We’ve got to fix that.
PurpleGirl
Gee, I went to bed early last night and hadn’t seen this post until a little while ago. Thanks, DougJ.
DougW
@Villago Delenda Est: Bravo!