Before the announcement, the treasury pointed out that S&P made a 2 trillion debt dollar analysis error. S&P acknowledged the error yet they refused to change their decision on the downgrade and announced it anyway.

So why did S&P downgrade and not Moody's? Why did S & P make such a blatant error and still announce? The S&P leaked the decision to downgrade to select investors prior to announcement. The treasury then found the error and S&P didn't change the decision because their friends on wall street would lose. S&P is the same company that stood by all of the banks during the sub-prime crisis, giving crap investments AAA ratings. S&P has friends on wall street that make/lose a lot of money based on the credit ratings that they issue.

Been thinking the same.

Yes, I agree. They're getting bold and shit's getting obvious.

The supposed debt crisis was used to usher in the Council of 13.

Bill Maher made a point in passing with his first guest last night, that the whole debacle just reeks of the "WMD in Iraq" thing. It just made me think about how easily the dog get's wagged.

What authority does S&P have in the world, both REAL and financial? Why are they downgrading NOW and not when GWB STARTED these costly unnecessary wars, and also changed the laws to make FAST FOOD into "manufacturing sector jobs"?

How can we follow the money on this one? Is the market being manipulated in a way that the correcting computers won't correct? (Kinda good, I will consider investing if the market gets much softer...)

Standard & Poor is run by McGraw-Hill Co. Harold McGraw III is CEO. He supports Romney.

I am pretty fucking sure that if you owe over 14 trillion dollars, you shouldn't even get a AA+ rating, which is what the rating has just been "downgraded" to. They should have downgraded it to FAR lower, LONG ago. The US economy is a complete sham.

Actually, we still have the largest economy in the world. Regardless, the fact that our GDP = debt is obviously a big effing problem.

"a big effing problem."

??

That's the understatement of the day. How do you propose to pay back or honor over 14 trillion dollars of debt, in an economy with real unemployment rates at close to 10%, probably higher, a middle class whose wealth has been decimated by political corruption and corporate greed, and an underskilled, under-resourced underclass with little to no financial power?

I repeat myself : the US economy is a complete sham. "Consumption" alone cannot sustain an economy - the US is living proof.

The bankers don't really intend or expect the debt to be repaid, so in a sense its not an actual debt.

I think it's something to kick start the American Union. The Economy is going to "collapse" and to "save" what is left, Canada, The U.S. & Mexico need to come together to create a powerful monetary system to save the economies.

They don't even try to pretend anymore.

That crisis will be used to expand government and corporate power.

While that is correct, I actually don't understand why your credit rating wasn't downgraded ages ago.

Long overdue. The real US credit rating is probably something like BBB. Just sell all of your dollars and buy Japanese Yen or Euros.

I suggest you look again at the euros.

I suggest you look again at the Yen.

S&P basically said that the US has to cut 2-4 trillion from the budget. This is Wall Street telling our elected representatives what to do. This my friends is "the bankers" taking over the government.