THEY STOLE OUR CREDIT RATING!

as most of you know, the US's credit rating was downgraded to AA+ on friday. before addressing this event fully, lets get the irony out of the way

S&P, one of the two dominant rating agencies, along with MOODYS, rated trillions of dollars of mortgage backed bonds AAA which had no business be rated as such and led materially to the global financial crisis. they probably should have been shot for this. god knows why they werent. so the irony of one of them now downgrading the US is pretty high.

having said that. if i was a financial analyst at said rating agency and someone gave me an anonymous file on the US, without the name and maybe changed the absolute numbers but kept the proportions to further mask the identity of the issuer, i would probably downgrade it also. based on the numbers, the projections and the politics.

does it matter? shit yes! what are we going to do about it? we will see. We should fire the govenment and all govenments that dont do their jobs in an honest and competant manner. but we have the govenments we deserve. we deserve these assholes. what are we going to do about it?

i was talking to a friend yesterday and i said we elected our own hugo chavez. and he said yeah, but without the oil. you all may have different opinions.

the strength of a country rests on many things; its values and belief system. its education system, its economy. from their actions, it doesnt seem that most people in washington and in the white house have a clue how to nurture a stong economy. the US has an almost 15 trillion dollar gdp. so 20% is $3 trillion dollars. dont you think most of us could design a govenment on a 3 trillion dollar budget? you cant take in 20% and spend 25% and borrow 1.5 trillion year in and year out. your shouldnt raise taxes so the input goes to 25%, 3 trillion is enough. we need a flatter, simpler tax code. most people dont pay much in taxes. the ones that do are of a class who in fact create jobs. i remember when i got my first big bonus check many years ago and i said to myself, 25% of this is really mine. 50% will go to the government and and 25% will go to my future ex-wife. so i was operating on a psycological tax rate of 75%. a bit steep. how about the following

for individuals
0-20,000 0% tax but pay social security etc
20k-40k 10%
40k-100k 15%
above 100k 22% and get rid of most deductions.?

and all income is treated the same, salary, bonus, dividends, capital gains, carried interests?

getting rid of the mortgage deduction is tricky. if you just eliminated it, the price of real estate would just drop, making a weak economy a disaster. maybe do nothing. it is attacked as a fetishistic subsidy of a personal asset but if you buy a commercial building, interest is deductable. why isnt a home a capital asset? certainly most families look at their homes as a major store of their families capital. maybe just make sure that mortgages are credit worthy; full documents, underwritten etc.

this obviously is rambling but i am mad as hell. those assholes lost my credit rating and i am pissed.