Aug
09
2011
After hitting a low-point on Monday, the biggest drop in 10 months, the Dow Jones Industrial average jumped back up this morning. The stock market is expected to remain volatile in the wake of the downgrading of the U.S.’s credit rating on Friday by Standard & Poor (S&P), and ahead of a policy statement expected from the Federal Reserve. The S&P downgrading was historic – after months of political wrangling over raising the debt ceiling in order to preserve the U.S.’s credit rating, the private company was the only one to reduce the rating from AAA to AA+. It is the first time in history that such a move has taken place. In a document explaining their reasoning, Standard and Poor said, “America’s governance and policy making is becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable.” Meanwhile, the two other major credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, have stood firm on their AAA rating. President Barack Obama gave a short address at the White House yesterday reflecting on the downgrade. Obama also said he plans to push for an extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, and “modest adjustments” to Medicare to help boost the economy. Meanwhile, Conservatives have jumped on the S&P downgrade issue to blame the President. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney lambasted Obama for carrying out a “partisan, blame-oriented presidency,” and said the downgrade “punctuated once again the failure of leadership by the president.” Another Republican Presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, blamed Obama for “dismiss[ing] the downgrade of our country’s credit rating, and argu[ing] that there’s no more room for spending cuts in Washington.” But billionaire investor Warren Buffet, some Democrats, and even the President’s spokesman are bandying about the term, “Tea Party downgrade,” saying that the S&P gave in to the extreme rightwing groups.
GUEST: Joshua Holland, senior writer and editor at Alternet.org, author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn’t Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America
Read Joshua’s latest article here: http://www.alternet.org/story/151935/standard_and_poor%27s%3A_
just_more_corrupt_wall_street_insiders_waging_class_war_on_america/
Listen to our November 22, 2010 interview with Joshua Holland here: http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=17281
I enjoy your program, but I found the interview with Joshua Holland about the economy frustrating for its tepidness with the guest blaming the right wing while letting President Obama off the hook for his own right wing actions as in, for example, the discussion of Obama’s request that Congress extend last year’s payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. I believe Holland called Obama’s weak requests “Econ 101”. Really? Extending unemployment benefits is obviously necessary and vital, but it ain’t no jobs bill, is it? It’s barely life support. And it certainly isn’t making the rich pay anything much less give back ill-gotten gains. Yet when you played the audio of Obama arguing that the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment benefits will “put more customers in the stores” as if these pitiful measures were a real “stimulus”, where was the scathing laughter and incredulity from both of you? More customers in the stores or in the soup kitchens? In discussing Obama’s request that Congress extend the payroll tax cut, Sonali said “it would not raise revenue” while Holland said “it’s a little bit complicated” as it “entails a risk” in “undercutting Social Security.” Do you think, really (irony intended here)? It’s not “risky”; it’s traitorous. It’s a TAX CUT that attacks Social Security for NO REASON proposed by a Democratic president for NO REASON (other than pleasing the “right wing”, read “the capitalist class” whether R or D or I) instead of Obama giving us an accurate description, meting out real justice, and implementing effective solutions. But Holland only mumbled something about “complex political reasons.”
I guess I’d just appreciate sharper analysis that cuts to the root which I often get from your program (bravo) but not so much here. I have a healthy (I think) suspicion of “what the right wing [Republican Party] doesn’t want you to know” authors who then soft-pedal what the “left wing” [really? lol] Democrats are in fact doing for and with the Republicans. Holland had no class analysis that I heard. More (good, useful) class analysis like R.D. Wolff please (much more useful) and less or no distracting and mystifying bourgeoise politics.
As far as S&P downgrading US debt rating, the market doesn’t care as it still ran to buy US Treasuries. The elephant and donkey dung in the room comes from the “toxic assets” (translation: toxic waste and criminal fraud) generated most recently by the Clinton-Bush busted bubbles that neither R’s nor D’s nor Obama want mentioned as they all attempt to “move on” and away from the crime scene.
Thanks. Keep up the good work. Forward!