Tag Archives: debt-to-gdp ratio

Economically-challenged Obama gets ‘stable’ voucher

by Bullright

[H/T and cred to Dave]

Former GOP Senator Judd Gregg to Moneynews: US Debt-to-GDP Ratio Is Exploding

Monday, 10 Jun 2013 07:04 AM
By Glenn J. Kalinoski and David Nelson

The debt-to-GDP ratio in the U.S. is moving to dangerous levels seen in Europe, said former Republican Senator Judd Gregg.

“We know that once a country’s cost is at 60 percent debt-to-GDP level they’re in trouble,” he told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.

“Historically our debt-to-GDP level is 35 percent up until three, four years ago. Then it’s bounced,” said the veteran politician, who also was governor of New Hampshire and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Now it’s up to around 70 percent. It’s headed toward over 100 percent. You look at Greece, you look at Spain, you look at Italy, you look at France. Their debt-to-GDP ratios exceed 100 percent and they’re essentially in bankruptcy or headed in that direction. Unfortunately, our debt-to-GDP ratio is heading in that direction, too.”

The Republican discussed his service on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which he said came to the conclusion that “we could stabilize [at] 70 percent and we’d be doing a good job.” Gregg said that would require a reduction in spending by, “at that time, that was two years ago,” $4 trillion over 10 years.

“Now we need to reduce spending by approximately $5 trillion over 10 years in order to hit that same number.” Gregg said.

Putting politics before people was another topic Gregg covered when discussing his time on Capitol Hill.

“There’s a natural tendency in Congress to want to get re-elected first and not worry too much about anything else,” he said. “It’s a difficult issue because these are complex questions. They involve very important issues that affect all Americans — Medicare, Social Security, tax reform,” he said.

“When you step on to that ground, you’re stepping on to a very volatile area of politics. But at its core is a question of whether or not we have a solid country, and if you don’t have a solid country, then you’re not doing your job as a member of government.”

/… see more:

http://www.moneynews.com/Economy/Judd-Gregg-Debt-GDP-Economy/2013/06/10/id/508927?s=al&promo_code=13C77-1

Sort of has a sense of urgency to it, doesn’t it? IF it were an emergency room they’d call it trauma. Well, to everyone but Obama.

Now for the real puzzler….

S&P revises U.S. credit outlook to ‘stable’

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Monday upgraded its credit outlook for the United States government to “stable” from “negative,” saying the chances of a downgrade of the country’s rating is “less than one in three.”

In August 2011, S&P became the first credit rating agency to downgrade the sovereign U.S. credit rating from top-rated “AAA” to “AA+,” the second highest rating, and had left the U.S. credit outlook at “negative” at that time.

S&P said in a release that the recent improvements in tax receipts and steps taken to address longer-term budget issues improved the outlook for the United States. The agency raised concerns about the ability of policymakers to tackle long-standing issues due to a deepening of a partisan divide in Washington in the last decade, however.

“We believe that our current ‘AA+’ rating already factors in a lesser ability of U.S. elected officials to react swiftly and effectively to public finance pressures over the longer term in comparison with officials of some more highly rated sovereigns and we expect repeated divisive debates over raising the debt ceiling,” the agency said in a statement.

Rival agencies Moody’s and Fitch currently both hold triple-A ratings on the United States.

(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and W Simon)

http://www.insightbb.com/reuters/default.aspx?doc=2013-06-10T132742Z_2_BRE9590K8_RTROPTT_0_NEWS-US-USA-RATING-SP.XML

Thanks to Dave for the articles.

Anyone have a clue about the soundness, reasoning, or sheer “politics” of this S&P revision?  And the funniest part is here is the pretender prez-I-dent declaring how bad the sequestration is going to be for the economy and demonizing fiscal politics.  Then comes this.

And the fed has been flooding us with money and monetizing our debt….which incidentally is only going up(drastically) with this meathead, tone deaf, economics-challenged prez.  Of course, that is to presume he even cares!

I’m only grateful the S&P does not install  road signs in America. Remember irrational exuberance? Welcome to Obama’s economy of rational fear. Then again, I guess even S&P doesn’t believe what Obama says.