Every day, there is a new joke about the economy--though, the joke is a cruel one on most normal people and unfortunately, the transcribers of the news (nee "journalists") don't get the jokes largely because they are (a) really dumb and/or (b) don't really care and/or (c) are so wrapped up in being "serious" they don't get the joke. Today, the joke is about Moody's--and it says a lot about the incredible foolishness of the debate about the phony debt and deficit crisis.
If you are part of the Serious People, then, you kneel down and bow your head to this, via The Financial Times(for subscribers):
Moody’s Investors Service has said it could place America’s triple-A credit rating on review for downgrade by mid-July in the absence of a deal to increase the debt limit.
Ummm...to channel Paul Newman, who are these Moody's guys? Well, one answer is, as I pointed out last month: they are a fraud. It is not independent. It is a creature of Wall Street, and, in particular, the bond market. These were the same idiots that rated the sub-prime crap that was being shoveled into the economy as top-grade investments.
And, per Michael Lewis in "The Big Short", quoting a big shot from Goldman Sachs:
"Guys who can't get a job on Wall Street get a job at Moody's"
So, the guys at Moody's are dumb, incompetent and entirely incapable of predicting an economic meltdown AND they are entirely mouthpieces of the bond markets.
Make no mistake about it: downgrading the U.S. credit rating does hurt individuals in their pocket books.
But, what this points out is the cruel joke about the economic "debate"--such as it is--that is underway:
There is no debt or deficit crisis. It's entirely manufactured.
BUT...inside this Alice-in-Wonderland world, by playing a game of a phony crisis, they are creating a foolish narrative of a phony crisis, ignoring the real jobs crisis and, then, as the circle closes, inviting a discredited, incompetent tool of the creation of the crisis--Moody's--to throw more gasoline on the phony crisis.
You can't make this up.
You'd think this was all planned...