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Leave it Michael Moore: “Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down the economy in 2008& now they will do it again,” Moore profoundly tweeted Monday. Read the full article: http://thedc.com/rk60eL

CNBC just broke in and told the audience that the President has requested airtime and will speak to the nation at 1300hrs EST (12 noon central, 10 AM PST) on the US national debt downgrade.Developing...

S&P's Beers: We Don't Have a Hit List Published: Sunday, 7 Aug 2011 | 8:58 PM ET By: Deepanshu Bagchee Supervising Digital Editor, CNBC Asia After Standard and Poor's historic downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating to AA-plus from triple-A, fears are growing that other countries may be next, most notably France, which is facing big costs from a bailout of troubled Euro zone countries. But the global head of sovereign ratings at S&P says the agency does not have a target list and will downgrade ratings as and when it sees deteriorating economic performance or debt burdens. "We don't...

A credit rating is an informed opinion. Nothing more. Nothing less. That helps explain why one major credit rating agency -- Standard & Poor's -- has downgraded the United States, while another -- Moody's (Symbol : MCO Loading... ) -- has chosen to affirm its credit rating with caveats. Both agencies had the same essential set of facts about U.S. debt: There's a lot of it now. There's a lot more of it to come. And there's very little in the way of actual policy today that looks likely to seriously change that outlook. Where the agencies differ, however, is...

Market crash for Mon?

S&P futures opened a couple of minutes ago, down 30 points, equivalent to about 250-300 on the Dow.

Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the nation’s credit rating gives House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan every right to say “I told you so.” Even earlier this week when President Obama was taking his victory lap for the debt-ceiling compromise, Ryan was disclosing the cold, hard truths of the economic troubles that lie ahead — truths that a jittery Wall Street has been more than aware of. In an oped column in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, the Wisconsin Republican reiterated, of course, that the president really has no budget plan. “The president’s February budget,” he wrote, “deliberately dodged the tough...

Late yesterday, the judge (the S&P) issued a verdict on the status of the case involving the US economy, and exonerating the accused defendants (the Tea Party) of all charges leveled by the plaintiffs (the WH, both parties of Congress, and the media). Said accusations? That any repercussions of the debt ceilings debate - aka national credit ratings, general Armageddon, and all ensuing fallout - were primarily the responsibility … aka *blame*… of the grassroots, unorganized and unofficial movement referred to, generically, as the "Tea Party". These accusations, without founding in any logical other than political demonization, were based on...

It seems like more and more in the GOP are starting to look at the wars as a way to cut spending. And with the tragedy of loosing some of our best soldiers yesterday it doesn't really seem worth it any more to stay over there in Iraq and Afghanistan. Especially given the financial situation we are in. The wars and entitlement spending need to be cut drastically to get us on track to at least sustain our debt, if we don't do that I think things could get even uglier in the short term.

Outgoing White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee went on the attack against Standard & Poor’s on Sunday, charging the agency’s credit downgrade was based on “questionable mathematics.” The rating agency lowered the U.S. credit rating on Friday from a top AAA to AA+, but not before the Treasury Department discovered an accounting error by Standard & Poor’s and urged the agency not to downgrade. “They made a $2 trillion math error, and they didn’t check their work,” Goolsbee said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Goolsbee also called for policymakers to focus not just on the deficit but also on longer-term...

“So make no mistake: Health care reform is entitlement reform.” — Barack Obama, April 14, 2009“Health care reform is entitlement reform.” — Peter Orszag, OMB Director, February 23, 2009Whenever Republicans insisted on debating entitlement reform and the looming unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Medicaid, which by some calculations amount to more than $100 trillion over the next few decades, President Obama had one handy answer: we’ve already accomplished it. ObamaCare, he and his administration insisted, was the entitlement reform that we needed to address the crises in Medicare and Medicaid. Obama claimed that going into the months-long battle that eventually...

After S&P downgrade of US, Israeli stock market delays opening on fears of steep plunge By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, August 7, 2:39 AM JERUSALEM — The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has delayed the start of the week’s first session after pre-opening trade showed the benchmark index dropping more than 6 percent following the downgrading of the United States’ debt rating. Exchange spokeswoman Idit Yaaron said the start was pushed back by 45 minutes “so market players will have time to react logically and not under pressure.” Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.’s rating late Friday by...

Dispute Over 'Basic Math' Began With S&P E-MailBloombergThe e-mail message that unleashed hours of debate between US Treasury Department officials and Standard & Poor's arrived at 1:45 pm on Aug. 5, just as US and European stock markets were limping toward the end ...Treasury Hits Back Against S&P DowngradeFox BusinessInvestors to assess U.S. debt downgrade, Fed movesMarketWatchTreasury Disputes S&P Math, Saying Downgrade Doesn't Add UpSan Francisco ChronicleBusinessWeek -Wall Street Journal -CNNall 5,450 news articles »...

[snip] Good Morning America had on Mellody Hobson, a regular ABC "financial contributor" and former host of her own ABC financial-advice show. Hobson hit S&P hard, expressing the view that "everything that they do is suspect." There's just one little factoid ABC didn't share with viewers. While presented as an ostensibly objective financial expert, Chicagoan Hobson in fact is an Obama partisan. Hobson served as a big-time fundraiser during Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and is involved with his 2012 campaign. View video here.

Today, There's A Much Bigger Story Than The S&P Downgrade Joe Weisenthal Aug. 7, 2011, 7:02 AM Worried about the Monday open? You probably should be, but really, the S&P downgrade isn't the big worry. It's Italy.Italy has the third largest bond market in the world (after the US and Japan), and it's teetering on the brink of disaster. The belief in Germany is that existing bailout mechanisms aren't sufficient to save the country and that expanding them isn't the right idea, since at that point you're talking about placing massive risk on Germany's sovereign debt itself. The last backstop...

One day after lowering the nation’s platinum triple-A credit rating, Standard & Poor’s analysts warned Saturday that the U.S. government could face a second downgrade if the economy continues to struggle and the government fails to make the cuts outlined in the debt ceiling agreement. The ratings agency on Friday downgraded the nation to AA+ for the first time in history, saying partisanship in Washington is preventing dramatic deficit reduction.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama sought to distance himself Saturday from the bad news of the nation's first-ever credit-rating downgrade, but lawmakers and presidential candidates showed no such reticence—trading salvos over who's at fault and why. The president, spending the weekend at Camp David, left it to press secretary Jay Carney to say it's clear Washington "must do better" in tackling soaring deficits and other economic woes. A statement from Carney said talks that produced Tuesday's $2 trillion compromise on raising the U.S. borrowing limit had been too drawn-out and "divisive." But the statement didn't directly address Friday's move...

Should anything happen to the Obamas' Portugese water dog Bo, perhaps the First Family could adopt Jeff Glor as a pet parrot. The weekend Early Show weekend co-host proved the perfect White House mimic this morning. Glor dutifully echoed the Obama admin line, dismissing as "political" Standard & Poor's downgrade of the US government's credit rating. In support of his point, Glor twice mockingly referred to the fact that the country of Liechtenstein now has a better credit rating than the US. And your point is, Jeff? View video after here.

Standard & Poor's first-ever downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt could lead to some market tumult next week, investors and analysts said Saturday. Over time, though, the downgrade might do little more than mark a moment in the decline of U.S. economic strength, they said. There may be an "adverse market reaction," said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at research firm Capital Economics. But it "won't be long before the markets focus once again on the economic fundamentals," which he described as "not great." Mr. Dales said "the loss of America's AAA rating is the clearest sign yet that the fallout...

America's most trusted investor, Warren Buffett roundly dismissed the S&P downgrade in comments to Fox Business. "I don't get it. In Omaha, the U.S. is still triple A. In fact, if there were a quadruple-A rating, I'd give the U.S. that." Berkshire's exposure to treasuries is significant, but he says he doesn't plan to sell. Buffett sounded no alarm bells about the downgrade, going so far as to say it wouldn't have much effect on the markets Monday. "If nothing else takes place, meaning, if all other variables hold and there isn't say, a new problem in Europe, it won't...