I agree - it is inevitable that we lose our AAA rating. Jim Rogers began shorting USD last month, PIMCO began dumping treasuries long before that. The dollar is finished unless we have significant austerity measures in place this summer - we all know what the likelihood of that occurring is. China is ammused as they have been dumping USD for years — some say they’ve dumped about 1/2 of their holdings now. The dumping is actually spending in the form of long term resource/commodity aquisitions. These are a not matter of single upfront payments but payments over time, in USD. When those dollars hit the 3rd world, they will effectively be going from the deep freeze (China’s reserves) to high velocity. If we are not already in hyperinflation due to loss of confidence, this increase in velocity as latent price inflation goes to manifest will get things rolling.
There will be no austerity. It's not politically feasible.
Politics and reasoned macro-economics are mutually exclusive.
Absent taking ALL economic decisions out of the hands of all government officials, we are certainly doomed.
When we crossed the threshold from "fiscal and monetary policy" , wh9ich were bad enough, to: "Quantitative Easing"...we jumped the shark.
That's not to say QE is the thing that brought us down. It's to say we crossed a threshold where people expect, and governments attempt to create reality from an unrealistic position.
Their motives are good but their knowledge and wisdom are severely lacking.
Jim Rogers walked away from America.
Who cares what he says.