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What it really meant when US Treasury securities were just downgraded: Fitch Blames it on everything else but the most important factor -- OVERSPENDING
American Thinker ^ | 08/03/2023 | Jack Hellner

Posted on 08/03/2023 7:21:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

See also: US credit rating sinks as national debt increases

When Fitch, the securities ratings agency, downgraded US sovereign debt, it was a huge story in the financial world. The Wall Street Journal’s initial coverage noted that it was:

…clouding the outlook for the $25 trillion global market for Treasurys. Fitch’s rating on the U.S. now stands at “AA+”, or one notch below the top “AAA” grade.

America’s reputation for reliably making good on its IOUs has cast Treasury bonds in an indispensable role in global markets: a safe-haven security offering nearly risk-free returns. Treasurys serve as a critical benchmark for returns on stocks and other bonds, because investors generally demand greater yields on any other securities that they buy.

But instead of blaming overspending by the government for decades for running up the debt to unsustainable levels, Fitch decided to blame January 6th, two and a half years ago, for its ratings downgrade.

They also somehow essentially blamed Republicans for trying to negotiate spending restraints before increasing the debt ceiling. This makes it appear that if Republicans just caved and we had unlimited debt and unlimited spending and high taxes that everything would be OK.

What could go wrong? Fitch, like other ratings agencies, make huge amounts of money rating government debt from the US, states, cities, and agencies like Fannie and Freddie. Never forget that their income goes up if the government borrows more.

There was absolutely no threat that the U.S government was going to default, no matter how many times the public was fed that talking point.

Why would anyone trust the ratings of Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch when they contributed so much to the economic collapse in 2008 by giving junk mortgages great ratings in 2006 and 2007?


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creditrating; downgrade; fitch; treasury

1 posted on 08/03/2023 7:21:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Well. DUH!


2 posted on 08/03/2023 7:24:31 AM PDT by traderrob6
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To: SeekAndFind

Let’s go Brandon!


3 posted on 08/03/2023 7:26:34 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer” )
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To: SeekAndFind

In cahoots


4 posted on 08/03/2023 7:27:56 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ( I'm Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee)
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To: SeekAndFind

Why downgrade now?


5 posted on 08/03/2023 7:31:30 AM PDT by Raycpa
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To: Raycpa

Maybe so they can bump it back up to AAA when the election comes down to the wire. “See! Bidenomics, people!”


6 posted on 08/03/2023 7:37:14 AM PDT by Blurb2350 (posted from my 1500-watt blow dryer)
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To: SeekAndFind

The rating is relative. We still have the best crappiest money in the world.

1) the market does correct itself even under socialism/facism.

2) In our lifetime a major world power went bankrupt. What can we learn from history?


7 posted on 08/03/2023 7:47:50 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Of course Fitch blamed J6 and debt negotiations. The United States has a fascist government and a fascist political system. Businesses can only operate here if they stay in the good graces of our fascist government rulers.

This was the propaganda line they were told to say by our government…they say this then all is fine and they can continue to exist. They tell the truth about it, they cease to exist. That’s America…that’s how America operates.


8 posted on 08/03/2023 7:56:00 AM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast (“We should not assume civilization is robust”)
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To: All

It’s very hard to get true conservatives to understand . . . conservatism.

It has nothing to do with isms. Certainly not capitalism. Nor socialism. Nor Communism. All those isms get measured by a substance created from nothing on a Federal Reserve whim.

How can such a substance define ideology? It can’t.

But if you want the truth of the math, you can’t cut spending. Gov’t spending is all that drives the economy now. The G variable is explicitly in the GDP equation. Cut it, you cut GDP. Cut GDP and the debt/GDP ratio explodes — even worse than it is.

Cutting spending therefore won’t help. Cutting (or raising) taxes won’t help, either.

It’s all too late. Capitalism has failed. You can wriggle around and point ideologically to some happening in the 1980s or 1990s or whenever, but in terms of visibility, it was when QE got defined in 2009. That’s when money creation (from nothingness) really became clearly the only engine behind the economy.

It’s not going to get better. Ever.


9 posted on 08/03/2023 8:04:54 AM PDT by Owen
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To: Owen

“It’s not going to get better. Ever.”

Reindustrialization and other reforms would improve matters.


10 posted on 08/03/2023 8:25:14 AM PDT by Brian Griffin (“Miserably inadequate” people generally vote Democratic.)
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To: Owen

Crony capitalism is still working for some.


11 posted on 08/03/2023 8:26:16 AM PDT by Brian Griffin (“Miserably inadequate” people generally vote Democratic.)
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To: Owen
But if you want the truth of the math, you can’t cut spending. Gov’t spending is all that drives the economy now. The G variable is explicitly in the GDP equation. Cut it, you cut GDP. Cut GDP and the debt/GDP ratio explodes — even worse than it is.

Truth hurts. I did a math exercise on the government cash equivalent retirement benefits I receive over and above my individual and former employer contributions. In eight years I have scored $500K more in benefits than taxes were ever paid in my behalf. I do not know if I should be ashamed or brag. That said, there are no fiscal conservatives in the GOP, including Trump.

12 posted on 08/03/2023 8:41:00 AM PDT by buckalfa (Gut feelings are your guardian angels)
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To: buckalfa

I probably didn’t make my point because it is the most difficult to grasp.

The substance from nothingness is money. It’s not physics. It’s not measurable laws. It’s laws of supply and demand, trying to make a substance created on a whim from nothingness conform to a “law”. It is absurd to expect it.

This is why all the isms are meaningless.

We use money. This leads guys to presume it must mean something.

But it can’t. It came from nothingness on a whim.

Taxes and spending cannot be in any way a measure of conservatism — which, btw, is another ism.


13 posted on 08/03/2023 11:09:15 AM PDT by Owen
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To: Owen

👍👍👍👍👍


14 posted on 08/03/2023 11:30:04 AM PDT by buckalfa (Gut feelings are your guardian angels)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Fitch analyst that made this report has probably been fired and erased from all company records as if he/she or it never existed.


15 posted on 08/03/2023 1:08:52 PM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Freedom is never free. It must be won rewon and jealously guarded.)
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