Off by $2 trillion? NBD.
A mathematical error discovered late Friday by Treasury Department officials threw into limbo, at least temporarily, plans by ratings firm Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the top-notch AAA credit rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, people familiar with the matter said. The wild back and forth between the Treasury Department and S&P Friday afternoon illustrated the dramatic stakes as the ratings firm moved to downgrade the debt.
S&P officials still had not decided how to proceed and could move forward with a downgrade despite the issues raised by the White House, the people familiar with the matter said. A decision could come later Friday. S&P officials notified the Treasury Department early Friday afternoon it was planning to downgrade the debt, a government official said, and the firm presented its report to the White House. S&P has previously warned such a downgrade might come if Washington didn’t move to comprehensively tackle its long-term fiscal woes.
After two hours of analysis, Treasury officials discovered that S&P officials had miscalculated future deficit projections by close to $2 trillion. It immediately notified the company of the mistakes. S&P officials later called administration officials back to say they agreed about the mistakes, though they didn’t say whether it would affect the rating. White House officials remained waiting Friday evening to see what the company would do.
I'd still work for S&P than UBS
AA is the new killing it.
70 years and 12 Presidents(both Democrat and Republican)………AAA.
2 1/2 years of Obama's wild spending………………Downgrade.
Everyone repeat after me:
Thank You, Comrade Obama!!!
you're an idiot
http://i.imgur.com/e2YzU.jpg
Change. Now I get it.
I hope you burn for your stupidity.
you're a fucking idiot.
First repeat after me: I have shit where my brains should be.
Is that S&P's motto?
Bess you should run for Treasury Secretary. I'm sure you'll find $3 trillion error instead of $2.
what?
Yeah! She could be not only the first woman T.Sec but the first person to ever run for a gig that you're appointed, not elected to.
So, you're impressed by self-serving tripe from the White House? How nice for you.
I see what you did there, but do you see what you did to yourself?
Semantics bro
i wouldn't trust her
Kill yourself.
Looks right to us……..
~ SEC
This is beyond irresponsible. IMO the mortgage issue was caused by these rating agencies selling ratings.
At least in the short term we are fucked!
Using the Liechtenstein 30-yr AAA notes as the risk-free rate in finance is the NKI
I hate people like you – you're probably not very intelligent, don't know much in the way of facts, watch a lot of fox news, the list can go on….
I've been using Isle of Man's for years….
What's the big deal really? This is actually going to revive the housing market., AIG, BofA, Citi etc. The only AAAs left will be RMBS senior tranches. Who's long RMBS? Boom. Done.
No, you,
just shows you can't trust an injun (dot not feather).
"we've made ratings decisions using worse math"
-S&P Official
Not entirely fair. This is also due to what happened on other people's watch.
Given that that's the case, how about this:
Obama deserve as much credit for S&P's downgrade as he does for catching Bin Laden.
Evidently it was not a mathematical error, instead they were using the wrong baseline assumption. Sounds like an associate fucked up
-Top Tier
As long as it was just an associate and none of his superiors caught the error, we're all good, thanks.
"S&P stands revealed as not understanding basic analysis of budget estimates. "
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/i-hea...
Oh spare me, if anything the S&P was being generous to us by not downgrading the U.S. much sooner and you're just not a serious analyst (i.e., Paul Krugman) if you're going to dance around that fact.
This was deserved. Quit whining and blaming the messenger.
Eat shit and die
So, what you are saying is that after $10 trillion of debt, a near collapse in 2008 where assets deflated, where government revenue has dropped, in addition to tax cuts demanded by Republicans in a 2010 deal, and where the 2009 budget was Bush's, and where the costs of two wars were brought "on budget" (instead of excluded per Republican practice) it's all Obama's fault?
What is this wild spending of which you speak? If you are going to make wild ridiculous characterizations, at least, back it up with some context and truth. Trump is that you?
The fact that lolol's chart figures taxes as a zero-sum game is ridiculous. Anyone advancing it as proof doesn't fully undertand the effect that raising or lowering taxes has.
For an understandable lesson, study the devastation that happened to the luxury yachting industry after the 10% luxury tax.
Uhm, people still pay attention to S&P? Who the fuck cares what they have to say either way on the issue? It's not like they missed any important details in the course of the last decade…..
im gone for 2 months being terribly gainfully employed and there is a completely new commenting system? wtf. my likes to comment ratio on disqus was the stuff of legend…LEGEND.
AND NOW MY NAME IS TOO LONG?!! Good God this place is falling apart.
It's S&P's fault
Even taking the chart at its word–it's kinda glossing over the $3.6 trillion in new debt from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that's listed at the bottom of your link. This, along with defense, has also been the fasted growing part of the debt (except that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid account for a lot more of the budget than defense does).
To label that thin slice in the middle as "Obama's policies" is a slight of hand. Obama and the Democrats had been fighting to keep these expenditures from being cut. For that matter, Bush attempted to have these expenditures cut early in his second term and was thwarted by the Democrats. They're still going nuts over plans to cut this. This is their turf. This is a gigantic part of the debt that they're responsible for and that they continue to bear the blame for.
Weekend comments are the NKI.
- Kid with a life
Get yourself a box of cereal and shut the fuck up.
2 things-
1. Australia opened at 6:30 last night, NY time; Tokyo at 8:00 p.m.; London at 3 a.m. Your weekend doesn't necessarily correspond to the rest of the folks on this board;
2. Whilst I'm sure this news had no affect on your pool time with your 14 new best friends at your share house in Hampton Bays, some of us were actually on the desk this weekend. Just sayin'
Yes because this is so much less worrying for global financial markets… http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/07/rick-...
Be sure you grandma was a bitch, your mom was one too and you are the filthiest of them all…boy you are!