You missed a party. Republicans aren't very highly regarded either. If you're an incumbent of either party in 2012, I wouldn't get comfortable.

Shhh, you have to respect MBBF's track record for calling these sorts of things.

My gut tells me if unemployment is still high and economy still stagnant, Obama is going to be toast (and the Healthcare plan). The economy needs to be trending the right direction.

Sure the Reps don't have their act together but pretty sure they'll be able to band together somehow in their common cause of getting Obama out.

To me the biggest and most helpful change is that companies will no longer be able to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. Also, one thing that has already been extremely helpful is the abililty to cover children up to the age of 26. That has been very good especially given the current state of the economy where many college graduates are struggling at finding good jobs.

And I think the biggest long term victory of ACA is that it will eventually lower health costs in the long run. With everyone covered, there is more incentive to seek preventative care, catching things much earlier and avoiding alot of the costly procedures that are currently running up healthcare costs.

Well, in all fairness I wasn't exactly disagreeing with anyone, I'm saying that neither party has a lock on the current seats their lazy asses currently sit in.

This. The man in charge takes the heat in these situations, though I agree with others that he shouldn't be the only one blamed. If I had to guess, I'd say Congress goes Republican with a lame duck president (Obama).

Well, unemployment is still lower than in the comparable time period for Reagan (9.1% now as opposed to 9.4% in July 1983) and Obama took office with a much higher approval than Reagan.

To me it comes down to what will the average GOP primary voter be like? They threw away 2 easy Senate victories (NV, DE) and a chance at a 3rd (CT) by nominating lunatics. It's entirely possible they will be dumb enough to nominate Bachmann. The only way Obama loses to Bachmann is if unemployment goes back above 10%. If it's under 9% then he beats anyone. If it's anywhere in between, then Romney probably wins but not many others.

Normally Obama would be in a ton of trouble come election time, but the Republicans have a cornucopia of shit running on their side. If they can find someone halfway decent, it should be a good race. But this current crow is pathetic. Romney is the only one with a chance and I just don't know how passionate the tea party folks will be with him.

In June 1993 Clinton had a 37% approval rating, yet revisionist historians love to write about how the GOP just sacrificed Dole because they didn't think they could beat Clinton. If Obama beats Romney, are we going to hear more of that nonsense?

Yep... +1

It should be easy enough for a moderate (or libertarian-leaning) conservative to come in and roast a lot of Obama's leadership on getting people to work by pointing out that it hasn't been his priority.

The problem is that the only Republican that I can see not making most liberal-leaning voters' skin crawl is Romney...who may not win the primary to even make the argument.

Barring some dramatic downward event with the economy (and I mean...real bad, not just the dow drop from yesterday), I can't see Obama losing 2012. I don't think he wins by as much as 2008, but I just can't see the majority of voters going with an alternative.

There were alot of stuff flying around about end-of-life counseling, rationing etc. Honestly, I don't know where all of that ended up ... any idea on how Obamacare will tackle the issue of majority of healthcare cost is at the last x years of life?

Any predictions on the market reaction to the US credit rating down grade?

Well shit. I don't know the ramifications of this but it won't be good. This may be a rallying cry for blaming the Tea Party (for right or wrong).

S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating - Aug. 5, 2011

If Obama beats Romney it'll be because the GOP nominated someone that ain't much of an improvement as their candidate.

It'll also be the end of the Republican party as we know it (because voters will be leaving the party in droves if they make the mistake of nominating another lukewarm candidate & still manage to lose).

Those who've been wishing for a true third party might just get their wish in that scenario.

There are still two ratings agencies that earlier this week affirmed their AAA rating. Evidently there was a $2 TRILLION dollar error discovered earlier today in S&P's calculations, but they shrugged it off and stuck with their decision to downgrade.

Sounds like a test of my theory about the ability of an employee to survive an error that exceeds one digit more than their salary. (i.e. a $50k employee might survive a $100k error but not a $1m error, a $1m employee might survive a $10m mistake).

Since I don't think anyone at S&P is making $100b or more, somebody ought to be getting fired if my theory is correct.

They basically cited the debt ceiling circus that politicians engaged in as a reason for it too. It wasn't just the numbers, but the fact there are elements of the government that want the country to default.

Text of their decision. Particularly hard on Congress and Republicans.

Full Text: The S&P statement on lowering the U.S. credit rating | Economy | Financial Post

What a bullshit decision. No way they'd make the same downgrade for a corporation that may face real problems years from now. The debt is high, but inflation is low, the yield on Treasuries is very low, and the interest is manageable. That won't be true in ten years without fixes, but that's where things stand now and for the next few years.

Futures right now are running down about 1% but, frankly, that's just not that much

SI

Probably the same team who was rating Goldman Sachs sub prime mortgage bundles as AAA

SI

I think Interest rates should go up on US debt also.

I can't help but to think the saying "putting the cart before the horse" seems to be what comes to mind here.

I know I've said it too many times, but we have been so focused on the wrong things as a country for the past 3 years. Yes, its been longer than that, but I'm speaking since the financial crisis when you'd think we'd enter a state of hyperfocus on getting our financials in order to sustain our current way of life. Sadly, we just didn't and now here we are.

To all the folks that were such advocates of pushing this down the road... what the fuck did you think would happen? They would keep their AAA rating until they are $50 trillion in the hole? Yeah this is the fault of people who are tired of endless government waste. Sure.

Gold standard!

Nah, just keep printing money until my kids are given trillion dollar bills by the tooth fairy. What garbage (not you Rainmaker, I know you are the messenger, but the article you posted about the AAA rating) Anyone who buys into a rating agency that has given America a AAA rating this long and then plays their own politics in taking it away deserves to lose money for foolish investments.

Inflation isn't the immediate concern, it's deflation. The money that has been "printed" hasn't made its way into circulation and sits in reserves. In fact, they probably would like a little inflation right about now. It's a much easier problem to fix than deflation. This notion that there is all this extra money out there is a complete and total myth and is part of a reason for these problems.

Shared blame. Manage it during the budget cycle, not when bills are due. This downgrade is a direct result of the fumbling when bills were due.

Right. You keep paying more and more for gasoline and food and wondering why the government created formula says there is no inflation. I will stick with common sense. Wish I wasn't so dumb and knew that the 16 trillion given to foreign banks doesn't effect taxpayers bottom line one bit. Why not loan 800 trillion then?

I think S&P was too quick to dismiss their $2 trillion error. Next week should be interesting, I'm sure they'll catch alot of flak from this ... pretty embarassing for them.

Obama administration official calls credit rating analysis 'way off' - CNN.com

A trillion here, a trillion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.

Whether I'm talking about the deficit, the error by S&P, or both is anybody's guess.

There is a reason we don't pick 2 items out and base the inflation rate for a currency on it. But if you are correct and we are living through rampant inflation, why are all the home prices falling? I mean if inflation is here, they should be skyrocketing. That would seem like common sense to me.

But I ask this. If the true inflation rate is much higher than anyone realizes, why aren't you pushing us to borrow more money? In that world where inflation is secretly much higher than the government tells us, we'd make good money just by borrowing.

It probably should be embarrassing to them but this is the same company that kept rating MBS as a safe investment as well shortly before the bottom dropped out on them, so not holding my breath on a public acknowledgement of error.

I don't think 1 rating drop is a big deal, in and of itself, in the long run but its certainly a sign of how inept & incapable our government has operated (and longer than just the past month).

I find it ridiculous for anyone to even complain about the error/downgrade. This would have never happened had the President and Congress made meaningful reform over this last period of debate on the subject. Quit your whining and pass more meaningful budget legislation if you don't like it.

This downgrade wasn't just about the last month or two, it's been about the last 10 or so years. The country has been reckless with their money for awhile now and it finally caught up to them.

True, but they could have made steps even in the last month or two to avert this situation and they failed miserably.

I don't know why you are mad though. You wanted the default. You wanted the lower credit rating. So now that it has happened, you are calling them idiots for something you wanted to happen? Doesn't make much sense.

I knew about the BBQ party but not the details below. Don't have a problem with the invitees listed (other than Al). Dancing to hip hop is somewhat disturbing as I visualize dancing in music videos, hopefully a little more restrained.

Fox News website calls Obama’s birthday party a ‘Hip-Hop BBQ’ | The Cutline - Yahoo! News

Default would have forced these idiots to take drastic measures. Instead we got this cow pie of a bill that did nothing and we STILL got our credit downgraded. These politicians need to pull their head out of their ass. FOFC could have done a better job than these guys.

Some additional insight. Who to believe.

S&P's $2 Trillion Error Didn't Change Rating Cut Decision - CNBC

Yeah, I don't know that, as a matter of policy, we should be structuring our budgets around what S&P believes it should be. That said, $4T in cuts or taxes would have been a better end result.

Its all funny money anyway, though. The realized tax revenue & expenditures will probably look much different. If we can get some sort of energy infrastructure policy in place which reduces oil consumption, I think those numbers can improve exponentially.

It turns out that if those crusading "people who are tired of endless government waste" weren't so obstinate, we had a $4T+ deal on the table to actually better pay our bills. But if you're so intransigent on tax increases to go along with spending cuts, this it the crap you get and, YES, they get a large part of the blame here.

SI

Because my family doesn't live like the government (and a lot of Americans) and I actually have no debt and quite a bit saved for my future. So of course I don't want inflation. Is this some sort of way you were taught to rebut Libertarians or could you really not think of that yourself?

You must be confusing me with someone else. I say cut the defense budget with a sword, close most of the redudent spy agencies, quit creating new agencies when we already are spending trillions more than we can afford, cut coporate welfare, and then you can start talking about taxing again. I would probably be more in favor of a tax system that doesn't reward home buying and getting married and hiding your money in loopholes but I think an overhual of the IRS is a pipe dream. My good friend's dad has worked his ass off for his money (and he does make quite a bit) so sometimes it just isn't as simple as eat to rich for me is all. But sure we all probably could pay a little more to get the government back in order.

With an economic recovery as anemic as this one, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes.

There is a sweet spot on the tax rate, you can't lower taxes to 1% and hope to make more taxes than when they are at 3%, etc.

On the flip side, it has been proven that when taxes are in the 35%+ range that tax revenues increase when they are cut.

I actually saw a (half-joking) writeup about how completely removing the federal income tax for a year (~$2.5T) would have been better for the economy as a whole than passing the Stimulus Bill (~$900B) just for the multiplicative effect on the spending which ultimately would have been taxed higher (in other forms such as sales tax, property tax, etc.).

But see, if you just remove the income tax then you can't hand out stimulus money to your campaign donors. At the very least, give a targeted tax credit called "The Keep America Creating Jobs Back to Work Program Thingy" to corporations that supported you.

.

There has been a wide consensus that housing has been through a bubble... using it as an argument behind no inflation is silly. It is hard to argue the current prices in food and oil though are bubbles (they might be running a little high actually, but no point going that subtle)... the consumption and price numbers are considerably closer than they were in the previous commodity bubble (when oil shot up to what was it, 150?).

If anything, consumption is low given production weakness across the board so if there was a recovery and the current oil price is 'true' the increased production should make prices grow even higher.

There are a lot of oversimplifications I am making in this statement, but essentially there is quite a bit of inflation across the board and they have recently been in the news about further tinkering with the CPI formula (so they can get out of paying retirees cost of living adjustments without appearing to cut social security, old people are too stupid to notice inflation rate adjustments after all).

There were arguments at shading the housing prices during the bubble from the inflation calculation, now they are eager as hell to have it be a component. The inflation rate is being played, its just happening in a forum none of you people give a shit about and you repeat the latest bull from CNBC.

The government is benefiting from the secret inflation rate, it is how they keep the social security and medicare projection numbers anywhere close to approachable, and they are still deep in the red. And who is to say they haven't tried to cash in on it through loans (does anyone else remember collapsing yield on the treasuries while they were printing money like crazy, I know the bullshit line is everyone pulled out all their stocks and bought treasuries with it, but a little supply-side analysis can sort that out).