Mo Money, Mo Problems

You can't turn on, or read the news, without coming across information (or sensationalism) regarding the debt ceiling and the financial crisis this country has gotten itself into.  Jon Stewart is one way I can follow-up my news intake without losing my mind.  At the end of July, this is where we stood, with news captions and articles creating a sense of fear that collapse was just around the corner: Stewart Takes On the President's Debt Ceiling Address.

With an agreement signed, only lowering the ceiling by a miniscule amount; you can view Stewart's appropriate response here, for the first time ever, this country has lost it's AAA Credit rating. 

From the MSNBC article US Government Loses Triple A Credit Rating:
"CNBC's John Harwood reported that S&P told the federal government at 1:30 p.m. ET Friday that it was preparing to downgrade the country's rating.
But Harwood reported that after U.S. officials pointed out an error in how S&P computed the ratio of U.S. debt to the gross domestic product, S&P decided to reconsider.  A source said S&P's calculations were off by "trillions," CNBC reported. A source familiar with the discussions said that the Obama administration believes S&P's analysis contained "deep and fundamental flaws."  S&P confirmed it changed its economic assumptions after discussion with the Treasury Department but said it did not affect its decision to downgrade." 

The article goes on to report, "The theme running throughout S&P's analysis is the breakdown in the ability of the Democratic and Republican parties to govern effectively. The agency said that policymaking and political institutions had weakened in the past few months "to a degree more than we envisioned." This has major implications for the nation's budget and debt problems...The compromise reached by Republicans and Democrats this week calls for creation of a bipartisan congressional committee to find $1.5 trillion of deficit cuts by late November, beyond the $917 billion already identified."
 
If you haven't had your fill yet, you can read more about the US Credit Rating Downgraded from The Huffington Post.

 

 

And I leave you with this article from The Huffington Post listing countries with higher credit ratings that the US.  How can we continue to proclaim that we are the greatest and freest country, when clearly, we're not.  Claiming something doesn't just make it true.  Actions speak louder than words, and saying our government is "of the people, by the people, for the people" hasn't rung true in far too long.