"I believe this is, without question, the tea party downgrade." -- Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." (Associated Press)
Update: As of 2:35 PM The DJIA is down 4.03%
Senator Kerry puts us in a strategic frame of mind as we look at the state of the tea party stock market crash of 2011. Markets have now recovered some of their steeper declines in overnight Asian markets of up to 7% earlier this morning as I reported here. And, just as I'm publishing this President Obama is about to hold a press conference to reassure the public, talk about the S&P credit downgrade, which appears to be based on faulty data, and the Afghan attack.
Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac have also been downgraded. I'll live blog the President's remarks in an Update.
Patricia Hill reports in The Washington Times Online Edition, Stock market takes a dive after credit downgrade, at 11:26 a.m., Monday, August 8, 2011. It is not as good as the WSJ article below, I only open with it here, so I can quote more detailed remarks of substantive details WSJ article.
Simon Kennedy writes a higher quality article in I don recommend.
LONDON (Dow Jones)--European stock markets ended sharply lower Monday as the first-ever downgrade of the U.S. credit rating sapped confidence in most sectors and sent Germany's blue-chip index down 5%.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index dropped 4.1% to close at 228.98, bringing its monthly losses to nearly 14%, after Standard & Poor's late Friday cut its rating on the U.S. to AA-plus from AAA, and said the outlook was negative.
The German DAX 30 index, heavily weighted toward automotive and industrial stocks, performed the worst of the major indexes, tumbling 5% to close at 5,923.27.
Russia's RTS stock index dropped 7.8% to 1,657.77, as falling oil prices hit the heavily represented energy sector.
Monday's decline for the Stoxx 600 added to a 9.9% drop last week--its worst since late November 2008. U.S. markets were sharply lower Monday by the close of European trading.
The Stoxx 600 index had initially gained on Monday morning as much as 0.8%, as investors welcomed the European Central Bank's move to snap up sovereign bonds, which helped send yields on Spanish and Italian debt sharply lower.
Israel's stock market closed down 7%.
President Obama is going to make a statement in a few minutes, however I have to pick up a friend from the hospital, so I invite others to use this space as a liveblog - open thread, to keep the conversation going.
10:35 AM PT: President Obama will make an press statement any minute now. I'm watching it on MSNBC and will liveblog it before leaving to pick up my friend at the hospital. US stocks have recovered some this afternoon, but global stocks took a fierce beating overnight.
Rep Emamuel Cleaver predicts to Andrea Mitchell that President Obama will talk about a new Democratic jobs plan.
10:37 AM PT: MSNBC captions say our President will speak about downgrade, and the Afghan attack.
10:52 AM PT: The President is 45 minutes late. Or I guess since he is the President, we are 45 minutes early, based on an inaccurate schedule announcement.
10:55 AM PT: Here come the President. Chris Matthews says he is not here to criticize but then says the President should have been out Saturday.
President Obama opens with a not that S&P downgraded our credit based on a political analysis, but that the markets still rate our credit as triple A.
'we didn't need a credit agency to tell us a protracted political debate would not be productive.'
'this is a legitimate source of concern, but the good news is we know what to do.
10:56 AM PT: We need tax reform that asks those that can afford it, to pay their fair share,
and modest adjustment to Medicare.
10:59 AM PT: 'It's a lack of political will. An unwillingness to draw lines-in-the-sand.'
'my hope is that Friday's event will give the Super Committee a greater sense of urgency to proceed, and this he will support their actions.'
'We need more jobs, which are growing at too slow a pace.'
'We should extend the payroll tax as soon as possible.'
'We should make sure the if you are unemployed you can continue to get payments that will give consumers and businesses more money.
'If we do not will will loose another half percent growht..
'And we need to rebuild roads. '
11:00 AM PT: 'there will always be factors we cannot control, but how we respond to such crisis we can control how we respond'
We have always been, and always will be a AAA country.'
11:02 AM PT: 'we always had the willing to act... for this generation and future generations.'
'American's have been through so much in these last few here.'
'The reason I have faith in these United States, is I have faith in the Ameican people.'
'Noone better epitimizes this the American men and women in the armed services'...... mentions the 30 Americans and 7 Afghan forces lost in the helicopter crash.
Now is the time to reflect on our losses.'
11:04 AM PT: 'Some like the 30 lost this weekend, gave their lives' in service to our country.
It's now over, so someone probably has a transcript up. But, I did my best to keep up.
11:09 AM PT: <!-- LIVE CHAT -->
<!-- END LIVE CHAT -->
11:38 AM PT: At 2:35 pm the DJIA is down 4%