While I was finishing sales tax refund claims…
…the whole economy went to hell in a hand basket, and we’re all doomed? Or something like that?
From what I can gather, because the Republican Party steadfastly believes that any kind of tax increase will hurt the economy and was willing to send the country into default, they stood their ground until the last second. Meanwhile, the President decided not to make a stand for tax increases because at the end of the day, he actually cares about functionally running the country instead of driving the country off the cliff on principle, so he agreed to this debt ceiling deal that heavily favored the Republicans. Voila!
But wait, some credit agency comes along and decides to be the hipster hater of credit bureaus (you know, the kind of schmuck who tells you that yeah, “Thriller” was ok, but I really, really liked “Off the Wall” better because dammit, I’m smarter than you and the unwashed masses) and makes a statement for the sake of making a statement, even if it’s got some essential truth to it. (Kids, it’s probably not a good idea to tell everyone that you are thinking about, or that’s it’s very possible, that you will not be paying your bills.)
So now everyone loses confidence because the haterade-drinkin’ credit agency said that you’re better off investing in Canadian beaver dung futures than the United States of America and its debt. So everyone sells their stocks. So globally, what’s the safe haven world investors turn to? That’s right, U.S. Treasuries!
So, to sum up: The Republicans say raising taxes will kill the economy, but now without the government spending any money, and no else continuing to, the economy is going to get killed anyway, and the markets were not soothed by the lack of tax increases. The President just wanted to keep things moving along without causing panic, so at the end of the day he took a bad deal over no deal, and the markets panicked and still went in the toilet. And Standard and Poor’s makes their big revolutionary statement about the state of American debt, so what happens? Investors ended up buying more US debt the minute the milk went bad.
That would be 0 for 3. A .000 batting average. If you prefer your baseball metaphors to contain advanced metrics, that’s an OPS of 0.
In the immortal words of John “Hannibal” Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
6 months ago