[Ferretlover]

The Europeans think the economy is about the people. The Americans think the economy is about things.

All economies are about people wanting things.

[americandream]

So what was S&Ps motivation?

To be the most honest of *main three fraudsters* rating agencies?

Assigning AA+ for a bankrupt state is still a fraud.

Less so than assigning AAA but nevertheless still a fraud.

The American state is bankrupt but the American elite are minting it in China.

[radon]

The conclusion might be a bit premature, but we're certainly seeing a leadership challenge between the US and China at the moment.

China challenging the US.........

Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism. Any real challenge to the US is about as likely as Arnie the Terminator doing a movie in which he really acts. The only real challenge to the capitalist model that America (and Britain) are in the process of finalising will ONLY come from the workers....and that is a long way off.

Your general sentiment is appealing, but who are these "workers"? Have you seen any "workers" in the UK or the US? All the "workers" in the world are now in China and the surroundings. How will the Chinese workers be able to challenge anything in America (and Britain)?

[americandream]

The conclusion might be a bit premature, but we're certainly seeing a leadership challenge between the US and China at the moment.

China challenging the US.........

Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism. Any real challenge to the US is about as likely as Arnie the Terminator doing a movie in which he really acts. The only real challenge to the capitalist model that America (and Britain) are in the process of finalising will ONLY come from the workers....and that is a long way off.

Your general sentiment is appealing, but who are these "workers"? Have you seen any "workers" in the UK or the US? All the "workers" in the world are now in China and the surroundings. How will the Chinese workers be able to challenge anything in America (and Britain)?

Whether you sell your labour directly (as do the developing Chinese) or indirectly (as do the disemployed casualised, self employed and multi-taskers in mature capitalist Western economies), the lack of any other means of sustenance other than the value surplus available within themselves sets a seller of labour (direct or indirect) apart from an owner of passive wealth. It is this very precarious position, which is a relatively sanguine state in the as yet incompletely globalised world, which will continue to ensure for a very long time that any rebelliousness is largely cosmetic and opportunistic, as we see in the UK. Give it some time though. The project to diminish the state, destroy services, casualise employment as well as drastically reduce it's cost is only but starting. We aren't anywhere near as bad as it is going to get. In fact, these are the "good" times for consumer society despite appearances. And these times have decades yet to run.

[rangerone314]

It is this very precarious position, which is a relatively sanguine state in the as yet incompletely globalised world, which will continue to ensure for a very long time that any rebelliousness is largely cosmetic and opportunistic, as we see in the UK. Give it some time though. The project to diminish the state, destroy services, casualise employment as well as drastically reduce it's cost is only but starting. We aren't anywhere near as bad as it is going to get. In fact, these are the "good" times for consumer society despite appearances. And these times have decades yet to run.

Probably true, and decades yet to run. Should be a fun downward slide. Sort of like sliding naked down a giant cheese grater.

[Keith_McClary]

S&P Offices Demolished by Cruise Missile

Well, so far they're just "in the crosshairs":
S&P Is Facing a Bipartisan Backlash in Washington

Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating has created something few thought possible: a bipartisan consensus in Washington.

Unfortunately for S&P, the rating firm is the one in the crosshairs. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are gearing up to put it under investigative scrutiny and do more to restrict the influence of S&P and its peers in financial markets.

(WSJ paywalled, but seemed to show entire article).

[EnergyUnlimited]

S&P Offices Demolished by Cruise Missile

Well, so far they're just "in the crosshairs":
S&P Is Facing a Bipartisan Backlash in Washington

Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. government's credit rating has created something few thought possible: a bipartisan consensus in Washington.

Unfortunately for S&P, the rating firm is the one in the crosshairs. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are gearing up to put it under investigative scrutiny and do more to restrict the influence of S&P and its peers in financial markets.

(WSJ paywalled, but seemed to show entire article).

It seems that American Banana Republic will have to be assessed by external sources...

[Cog]

Lets just make it illegal to downgrade the USA's debt. That will solve all of our problems.

[smiley]

China challenging the US.........

Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism

If you would have said to any British resident in 1760 that one day they would loose world domination to one of their former colonies, he would probably laugh at you and give you a similar answer as you just did.

Greece, England, Italy, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Russia, all these countries have had the position of "leader of the civilised world" for a period of time. China itself has held this position for many centuries. All it takes is weakness of the leading nation and the strength of another to reverse these positions, and that does not always involve a war.

Right now we have such a moment in time. The US is arguably not in the best of shapes (being economically struck and internally divided), while China both has the size and momentum to pose a challenge. Moreover the rest of the world Europe,Russia and the Middle East, are bystanders as they are occupied with their own problems.

Things change around the world and for some reason the changes always seem to surprise everyone, especially those who are the subject of this change.

Of course when the scholars have had their go at it and have analized and explained everything to bits the event has been stored in our collective memories as a logical train of causes and consequences. But the main event that set this chain off is often only realized for its importance afterwards. Who would have predicted that the election of Solidarity would lead to the fall of Communism.

Perhaps we will later recognize this downgrade as such an event. What I do know is that last weekend I saw a speech of a US president that I have not witnessed in my lifetime. Even under the greatest of challenges the US presidents have been able to deliver a speech of unity, defiance and on the path forward, Obama came no further than reflecting on the current situation, seeking excuses for it happening, and seeking arguments to downplay its importance.

[nobodypanic]

AA+ will be the new AAA.

[PrestonSturges]

China challenging the US.........
Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism

Perhaps we will later recognize this downgrade as such an event. What I do know is that last weekend I saw a speech of a US president that I have not witnessed in my lifetime. Even under the greatest of challenges the US presidents have been able to deliver a speech of unity, defiance and on the path forward, Obama came no further than reflecting on the current situation, seeking excuses for it happening, and seeking arguments to downplay its importance.

Unity with what? The Tea Party?

Do they still think that was victory? And in what sense? It's like a parent determined to prevent their kid from graduating high school so they can say "See I knew you'd fail," and then taking a victory lap. People understand that sort of dysfunction at a gut level as the person or relative you cut out of your life entirely. The Tea Party is the relative you take out a restraining order on.

[americandream]

China challenging the US.........

Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism

If you would have said to any British resident in 1760 that one day they would loose world domination to one of their former colonies, he would probably laugh at you and give you a similar answer as you just did.

Greece, England, Italy, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Russia, all these countries have had the position of "leader of the civilised world" for a period of time. China itself has held this position for many centuries. All it takes is weakness of the leading nation and the strength of another to reverse these positions, and that does not always involve a war.

Right now we have such a moment in time. The US is arguably not in the best of shapes (being economically struck and internally divided), while China both has the size and momentum to pose a challenge. Moreover the rest of the world Europe,Russia and the Middle East, are bystanders as they are occupied with their own problems.

Ok. Let me draw you an analogy. Islam rose in the Arabian Peninsula, it's birthplace. It ventured out to be an Empire under Turkic management. But the heart of Islam has always remained solidly Arabic, from cultural norms to the Arab take on Judaic economy to its territorial centre.....the Arabian Peninsula.

Likewise, capitalism is not truly globalised although its reach is global. Capitalism is uniquely Anglo-Saxon. It's rationale...it's forms, it's very substance is Anglo-Saxon. It is a form of wealth growth steeped in traditions even strange to other Europeans let alone those in the Far East. Yes, some of these European nations are robustly industrial, yet they are never truly creative in the capitalist sense which is why much of the financial heart of capitalism will always reside in London and New York until the planet's social-economy moves beyond the culturalism formalism of capitalism to something else and of course, we Marxists believe that it will be communism.

In the interim, China is increasingly assuming the role in Anglo-Saxon capitalism that Turkey did in Arab Islam...a role of manager and keeper of certain elements of the system...the core drivers will always reside in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom however. Come back in 5 years and this will have not changed.....just as I cautioned others on this forum of this fact 5 years ago when they were calling all sorts of calamities from China's assuming of the world's economic tiller to war with Iran....and one so-called Marxist who ought to have known better (on another forum incidentally) went as far as calling a war with China...... . I was amused to say the least. The child biting the hand of the parent....I think not!!

[PrestonSturges]

I always sort of thought the Chinese had capitalism while Europeans were still banging rocks together.

[americandream]

I always sort of thought the Chinese had capitalism while Europeans were still banging rocks together.

Mercantilism, not capitalism. The heart of capitalism lies in the unwritten common law rules on title unique to the Anglo-Saxon. Only the Anglo-Saxons refined the technique of extracting second, third, fourth and beyond tiers of estate from a primary estate using rules that are unwritten and inexact (flexible). Trading, manufacture, storing wealth, establishing privacy over common title.....thats fairly common amongst all of human kind and tends to be more exacting and fixed...witness Islamic rules on economy or even rules of the Catholic church and the non-English protestant churches (the Free Presbyterian church for example).

Those are modes of trading and storing wealth. Capitalism is a unique and flexible variant of that activity and draws its robustness from England's uniquely practical reform of its church and state.

One witnesses the tensions between these roots and the other traditions, in America, where there is this curious standoff between the pragmatism of the Northern bourgeoisie and his more Anglican tradition and the South with its strong Scots-Irish Presbyterian rigidity (which is why land based forms of wealth creation (feudalism and slavery) find a ready base of acceptance down there.

[Cog]

China challenging the US.........
Methinks not. China is owned by Western capitalism

Perhaps we will later recognize this downgrade as such an event. What I do know is that last weekend I saw a speech of a US president that I have not witnessed in my lifetime. Even under the greatest of challenges the US presidents have been able to deliver a speech of unity, defiance and on the path forward, Obama came no further than reflecting on the current situation, seeking excuses for it happening, and seeking arguments to downplay its importance.

Unity with what? The Tea Party?

Do they still think that was victory? And in what sense? It's like a parent determined to prevent their kid from graduating high school so they can say "See I knew you'd fail," and then taking a victory lap. People understand that sort of dysfunction at a gut level as the person or relative you cut out of your life entirely. The Tea Party is the relative you take out a restraining order on.

I suggest you get together with your progressive friends and right this horrible wrong in 2012.

[americandream]

In fact, when one observes Germany and Japan, one notes that they are actually mercantilist nations that participate in Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Much of the traded securities are in fact created within one or other of the two financial locomotives in the world, either the US or England and then used by the mercantilists within platforms largely mananged out of London, New York and Chicago, for example.There is talk of assetising being taken on by Iran or Moscow or Shanghai from time to time but has anyone ever wondered why these things never take off. They simply do not know what to do!!

For example rating. I know that Chin a has set up in rating but no one in the financial community will really take them serious. Why? Well, when you have billions invested in assets, it's hard trusting a nation which has no real roots in the legal engines that drive capitalism. The nation that does has shown just how difficult it is to value these assets...what chance have the Chinese getting it right...or so the thinking would go.

[PrestonSturges]

I always sort of thought the Chinese had capitalism while Europeans were still banging rocks together.

Mercantilism, not capitalism. The heart of capitalism lies in the unwritten common law rules on title unique to the Anglo-Saxon.

I'm guessing the Chinese got that stuff written down about 1000 years before the Europeans, in addition to the Chinese inventing clocks, oil wells, gun powder, rockets, and the printing press.

[americandream]

I always sort of thought the Chinese had capitalism while Europeans were still banging rocks together.

Mercantilism, not capitalism. The heart of capitalism lies in the unwritten common law rules on title unique to the Anglo-Saxon.

I'm guessing the Chinese got that stuff written down about 1000 years before the Europeans, in addition to the Chinese inventing clocks, oil wells, gun powder, rockets, and the printing press.

You cannot write down that which is dynamic. For example, certain rules on titles arise in the process of contemplation a new transaction structure.....there will be derivatives arise in the future that we can only dream of.

This is less do do with how civilised you were and for how long and more to do with how fleet of foot you are in being creative with the pile of rocks you have and the culture that has mastered the skill is English. Remember, the Anglo Saxon was, culturally, non-existent, when Rome was at its primacy.

[americandream]

All I am saying is don't write off America in hoping that capitalism will somehow be taken on by sonmeone else and mutate into some nice variant. That will not happen and you will be a very disillusioned perosn with such ideas.

We did that in the 90's with Japan in the hope that we would become a nice benign corporatism. Not only did that not happen, Japan disappeared into mercantilist obscurity. We did that in the '70's with Germany and yet, Germany's only claim to fame remains fine engineering.. something to be proud of yes, but not anywhere near as significant as assuming the status quo. The major exchanges are still in London and Chicago. That should tell you something.

[rangerone314]

I notice London and Chicago are more riot-prone than Tokyo or Berlin.