[nky]

This is how $3 trillion is written ---- Afghanistan & Iraq

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

[BillyB]

I got one . . .

There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.

--- W, July 3, 2003

[Hoot Gibson]

I got one . . .

There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.

--- W, July 3, 2003

Al Qaeda did attack us there and we are on the verge of eradicating them from the face of the Earth. Bush's comment proved to be pretty prophetic, unless Obama's campaign strategy of exiting from the wars early allows Al Qaeda to revive itself.

[Hoot Gibson]

The Dow closed today after dropping 512.61 points (4.31%). It is a good thing Obama got the debt limit raised and then calmed the market by explaining his new tax and spend programs. Otherwise, there is no telling how bad today might have been.

[TheRealThing]

I got one . . .

There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.

--- W, July 3, 2003

The idea here is that we, Americans (other than liberals) prefer a straight up fight, using our trained militia rather than the terrorist chosen tactic of targeting innocent women and children. They tried us staight up and got smoked. What's your point?

[nky]

I got one . . .

There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.

--- W, July 3, 2003

and we took the fight to them:eyeroll:Good for us:thanks:

[Wildcatk23]

Al Qaeda did attack us there and we are on the verge of eradicating them from the face of the Earth. Bush's comment proved to be pretty prophetic, unless Obama's campaign strategy of exiting from the wars early allows Al Qaeda to revive itself.

Lol? OK....

[Hoot Gibson]

Lol? OK....

I am paraphrasing the Obama administration's position on al Qaeda. Bush took the fight to al Qaeda where they face the best trained and equipped fighting force ever assembled and the strategy has worked. Had Obama had his way back when he was an Illinois state senator voting "Present!", al Qaeda would still be a formidable enemy threatened innocent, unarmed civilians in this country. So, why not give Bush a little credit?

[Deathstar 80]

I became curious on how much we would have to cut spending in order to not face a national credit rating downgrade.

To my understanding, both Moody's Investors Service and S&P will downgrade our national credit rating unless we pay off our national debt by $4 trillion in the next decade.

I haven't done much research on this, but I think our country currently receives $2 trillion of total revenue each year. However, we spend $3.6 trillion each year. If we cut government spending alone, we would have to cut $2 trillion each year just to pay off $4 trillion of our national debt in the next decade. That's not including interest from our national debt. This would be a significant cut since we would be spending $1.6 trillion on our country rather than $3.6 trillion for each year. I personally have no idea if raising taxes would help us more or not, but it does look like our national credit rating is going to be downgraded.

If our nation's credit rating is downgraded, I think that is the equivalent of an individual having a great credit rating and then having their credit rating lowered. That individual will have to pay more when they use their credit card. For our nation, we will have to pay back more when we borrow money.

I think this is the correct information. If anyone finds anything about this, please correct me.

*EDIT*: By the way, if we keep spending money like we have been, then the people who allow our country to borrow money might refuse to let us borrow any money if they get the idea that we might not pay them back. This would force us to cut spending. I've also heard that those who let our country borrow money might sell their bonds, but I personally don't know how that works, but I have heard that it will collapse our economy.

[Hoot Gibson]

I became curious on how much we would have to cut spending in order to not face a national credit rating downgrade.

To my understanding, both Moody's Investors Service and S&P will downgrade our national credit rating unless we pay off our national debt by $4 trillion in the next decade.

I haven't done much research on this, but I think our country currently receives $2 trillion of total revenue each year. However, we spend $3.6 trillion each year. If we cut government spending alone, we would have to cut $2 trillion each year just to pay off $4 trillion of our national debt in the next decade. That's not including interest from our national debt. This would be a significant cut since we would be spending $1.6 trillion on our country rather than $3.6 trillion for each year. I personally have no idea if raising taxes would help us more or not, but it does look like our national credit rating is going to be downgraded.

If our nation's credit rating is downgraded, I think that is the equivalent of an individual having a great credit rating and then having their credit rating lowered. That individual will have to pay more when they use their credit card. For our nation, we will have to pay back more when we borrow money.

I think this is the correct information. If anyone finds anything about this, please correct me.

*EDIT*: By the way, if we keep spending money like we have been, then the people who allow our country to borrow money might refuse to let us borrow any money if they get the idea that we might not pay them back. This would force us to cut spending. I've also heard that those who let our country borrow money might sell their bonds, but I personally don't know how that works, but I have heard that it will collapse our economy.

The way to balance the budget is to cap spending, or at least tie it to the nation's population growth rate, and begin reviewing all existing regulations, which are costing employers billions of dollars every year, often for no good reason. Tax hikes will simply result in more spending and more borrowing, as they will eliminate more jobs and reduce the pool of taxpayers.

The bond rating is nothing but a symptom of a sick economy caused by government meddling. The Fed is printing money to pay debt with inflated dollars. Many countries have done this before and none have succeeded. So, if the federal government pays bond holders a higher return on their investment it will not matter because the printing presses will be cranking out increasingly less valuable dollar bills. If we are lucky, our government and a majority of voters will regain their senses before a high inflation rate grows to hyperinflation levels.

I truly do not believe that most American voters are educated well enough to elect people to Congress and into the White House who are willing to take the actions necessary to head off an eventual economic collapse - but that is our only hope, IMO. As long as elected officials govern with both eyes on the results of polls and focus groups, we are doomed economically.

[TheRealThing]

ttt

[Deathstar 80]

I've just heard from CNN that S&P are going to downgrade our national credit ranking. Also, I think President Obama has told S&P that their math is incorrect and that they shouldn't downgrade our national credit rating.

To my understanding, interest rates on mortgages and loans would go up if they downgrade our national credit rating.

*EDIT*: Here's what it says on CNN.

Breaking News: S&P served notice it planned to downgrade U.S. AAA rating but is reconsidering, a senior administration official says.

[Deathstar 80]

According to Bloomberg, our country's national credit rating has just been lowered from AAA to AA+. I'm not sure how much affect this will have on our country, but I'm guessing that the people at the stock market will have a tough time on Monday.

*EDIT*: Sorry, it was only S&P that lowered our credit rating. Moody's and Fitch still haven't done anything yet.

[nky]

just remember these are the same rating agencies that played a big role in the mortgage/sub prime debacle-Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO), Hedge Funds and Credit Default Swap (CDS) were all given AAA status.

Maybe the lowering of the rating might be the shock needed in Washington

[Image: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0ydozdGglQQ/Tc...%2Bout.jpg]

[Hoot Gibson]

I don't know the first thing about selling government securities but I would be willing to bet that large investors like the Chinese government have an army of analysts who are as capable of assessing the risk of loaning the US government money as any of the companies that publish these ratings. Lowering the rating may give such buyers leverage to negotiate a better rate of return but we will soon see what, if any impact it has on interest rates.

[TheRealThing]

Congressional leaders have agreed in principle to finally bring legislation to the floor in both houses for ratification into law. The agreement provides for 7 trillion dollars in spending increases over the course of the coming decade, on top of the 14.5 trillion spending debt we own already. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and many other liberal legislators are dismayed and angry because the deficit spending is not 9 trillion! Rank and file members of the liberal democratic caucus are threatening to vote it down because they feel the spending increases are too small and republican legislators are tempted to vote against it because the spending cuts are to few. Meanwhile S&P and Moody's warn of loss of triple a rating because congress did not show enough willingness to deal with the debt crisis (not the debt ceiling) by the neccessary cuts and decreased spending measures. Liberals will have to launch an attack on the credibility of these two agencies to discredit the validity of their assessments if they follow their playbook.It's hard to wrap one's head around how much a trillion dollars really is.
there are 12 zeros in a trillion


this is how one would write the # of seconds from the start of man's recorded history--- 189,216,000,000
this is how 1 trilliion is written--- $1,000,000,000,000

Only 189 billion, 216 million seconds have elapsed in man's recorded history. I appologize for not lining up the decimal places in column, further, just for the sake of demonstration, recorded history is rounded off to 6000 years.

With regard to the parts of my own quote that I have bolded here, please note the first 3 paragraphs I have excerpted for the following article that came out only 15 minutes ago: ARTICLE---S&P downgrades US credit rating from AAA
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer The Associated Press



EXCERPT---
WASHINGTON (AP) — Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the United States' credit rating first time in the history of the ratings.

The credit rating agency said that it is cutting the country's top AAA rating by one notch to AA-plus. The credit agency said that it is making the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country's debt situation.

A source familiar with the discussions said that the Obama administration feels the S&P's analysis contained "deep and fundamental flaws."





Told you so. They attack anything that they can't explain away that contradicts their propaganda. The whole mess is absurdly tailored for the willfully ignorant by ideologues that can make up the rules as they go and pronounce them from the bully pulpit.

[TheRealThing]

It looks like all of Obama's talk about tax hikes and new spending since the debt ceiling was raised is having an impact. The Dow has been headed south since the deal was announced. As I write this, the Dow average is down 304.44 points (2.56%).

The vote on the debt ceiling agreement is more proof about what I have been saying about fiscal conservatism. The only fiscal conservatives in Congress are in the Republican Party but they are outnumbered by the tax-and-spenders - in their own party. That includes supporting fiscal conservatives running in Republican primaries against the big spending Republicans who now hold seats in Congress.

If we do not elect some fiscally responsible people to Congress in 2012 and sweep Obama out of the White House, life as we know it will soon end.

Very good post. Here's what kills me about what is happening right now. All these Obama supporters would rather believe the liberal lies than what they can plainly see with their own eyes. The world is falling down around us and we still have these wild eyed finatics with the accelerator pushed to the floor, heading for the wall with the lunatic's smile on their face. How can so many ignore what they know to be the truth, having actually lived during what has been a very good time in our history?

Americans used to be practical folk, now many choose to blindly follow the lead of a president who is both novice and the ultimate narcissist. Move over Charles Manson, you've met your match. All the Obama adherents, mindless and moon-eyed following him like Proles follow Big Brother in the novel 1984. See the eerie similarity of the world stage set forth in Orwell's novel compared to modern day events in the following synopsis of his famous book.


This article is about the Orwell novel. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation).
Nineteen Eighty-Four



Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes written 1984) is a 1948 dystopian fiction written by George Orwell about a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship. The Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. Oceania is ruled by a political party simply called The Party. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is in part this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity. In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meager existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother.

As literary political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is considered a classic novel of the social science fiction subgenre. Since its publication in 1949, many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and memory hole, have become contemporary vernacular. In addition, the novel popularised the adjective Orwellian, which refers to lies, surveillance, and manipulation of the past in the service of a totalitarian agenda.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nineteen Eighty-Four 13th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.



It just seems people have totally lost their ability to discern between good and evil, and truth and lies. They seem manipulated and happy about it. :HitWall:

[nky]

On the Democrats' side, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stressed "the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners."


This is the leadership we get out of the Democratic party after the downgrading. More of the same tired tax the rich and attack the corporations.

[Hoot Gibson]

On the Democrats' side, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stressed "the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners."


This is the leadership we get out of the Democratic party after the downgrading. More of the same tired tax the rich and attack the corporations.

I vividly remember when San Fran Nan demanded to be provided a larger military jet so that she and her family could be flown at taxpayer's expense, non-stop to her San Francisco home to avoid stopping to refuel a smaller and more fuel efficient jet.