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Robert Reich: Why S&P Has No Business Downgrading the U.S.

S&P has downgraded the U.S. because it doesn’t think we’re on track to reduce the nation’s debt enough to satisfy S&P — and we’re not doing it in a way S&P prefers….

Pardon me for asking, but who gave Standard & Poor’s the authority to tell America how much debt it has to shed, and how?…

It’s amazing people - even of this stature - say these things.

1) S&P has been incredibly vocal about warning that exactly this would happen if the govenrment didn’t take steps to lay out a long term plan. This did not sneak up on us. They were explicit about it. 

2) You wanna know who gave them the authority? THE US GOVERNMENT gave them the authority. This is what people forget. These are not organizations that just offer opinions for the hell of it. They are ingrained in our laws. 

Then there’s the most ludicrous thing I keep seeing, and Reich (WHO I LOVE, btw) says as well: “S&P’s intrusion into American politics is also ironic because, as I pointed out recently, much of our current debt is directly or indirectly due to S&P’s failures (along with the failures of the two other major credit-rating agencies — Fitch and Moody’s) to do their jobs before the financial meltdown.”

Well, DUH. They fucked up in the past. You expect them to think “oh, in the past we fucked up and gave the economy a bunch of slack and everyone hated us for not be honest. Let’s do that again!” They are now basically REQUIRED to be hardasses, and everyone should have known that already. Even if, you know, they didn’t warn us. WHICH THEY DID. 

This whole thing sucks, but this ridiculous turn of events where we start complaining about the ratings agencies is like yelling at your credit card company when you decide to skip some payments and not take that higher paying job sitting there right in front of you. 

(via rickwebb)

Source: robertreich