Quote from: evoorhees on August 11, 2011, 01:58:47 AM

So you're saying that the US credit rating got downgraded due to the one political faction in America that is actually the most vocal about debt reduction? And then you compare the entire faction to a potato - ignoring the probably reality that such a large group is necessarily composed of people from a wide range of intelligence, background, and character?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the histrionics and media news cycle grabbing that the Tea Party cultivated as part of the "debt ceiling discussion" damaged the market by spooking traders and pushing price levels below their normal trend. That was the real damage, NOT the S&P rating. Nobody cares about S&P. If they did, they wouldn't have bought so many of those downgraded bonds.

NOTE: we're already back to "pre S&P downgrade" levels. That's proof of it's "meh" ness.

The debt ceiling has been raised regularly since 1919.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/US-Debt-Ceiling-History.htm

The Tea Party chose to make it an unreasonable debate. The "Grand Compromise (GC)" that Obama and Boehner were set to sign would have lowered the debt without SINKING the market. They (TP) stopped it. They (TP) are to blame. The bill that eventually got passed is WORSE than the GC that was slated to pass.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/170551-boehner-backing-away-from-grand-compromise-on-debt

What the TP and the media who give them air time fail to recognize is that this really isn't a TV reality show. It's the economy. It's government that should be FOR the people. It's about people's lives.

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The US credit rating got downgraded because the US is not credit worthy. It's pretty simple. The downgrade should have happened long ago, actually. The amount of debt carried by the US Federal Government cannot mathematically be paid back without printing the money to do so (which they've already started doing via "quantitative easing").

We're more credit worthy than anyone else. Scary, but true.

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You seem to suggest that the creditworthiness of the country would be improved if the group advocating for "smaller government, less spending" was gone, thereby leaving more people who support higher spending levels? Perhaps you want to rethink your opinion on this.

The logic behind that statement is severely flawed:

if (A)
then (B)
does not imply
if (!B)
then (@^$@#%&)

The Tea Party doesn't really advocate anything concrete. They're like infants babbling nonsense. They think Evolution is a "theory" and that dinosaurs roamed the earth six thousand years ago. They are a media branch of the Republican Party, which stands for huge corporate profits. Smaller government means that corporations (like Enron, Exxon, British Petroleum, Lehman Brothers, etc...) and the like would be free to do whatever they want.

Are you willing to put your children to work at age 7? Have you even heard of child labor laws? How about the EPA?

You may want to re-read your history of Capitalism ... or more likely ... just read it for the first time. While I wouldn't consider this the best history lesson, it does have the virtue of being free:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism

Hope you enjoy.