Why the downgrade of our AAA rating is so irritating

Listen to Dave’s commentary: Is anyone reading the fine print?

You know what’s really galling about Standard & Poors’ yanking our AAA rating?

It puts us behind France.

France held on to its AAA rating, despite being a socialist country with national health care. And analysts say S&P spelled out why it considers France a model of fiscal health:

“They pointed out that France actually improved its position by saying that it would raise the retirement age by two years.”

Which according to CNBC was intended to be a message to us:

“What they seem to be saying was ‘Look at what France has done raising the pension age, wouldn’t it be a good idea if perhaps we did that here in the United States?'”

Yep. You know what France’s retirement age was? 60. So they raised it from 60 to 62.

Ours is already set to hit 67. You willing to hang on ’til you’re 69 for your Social security for the sake of a AAA rating? Fortunately, S&P had another idea for us.

No one wants to talk about it, but right there in the fine print of their downgrade release they said a big factor was that “The majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues…”

And they give an example of how to fix that: “Initiatives such as the lapsing of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners…” In other words, S&P would like to see higher taxes on rich people.

Folks, whatever you think of S&P, when a Wall Street firm run by rich people recommends higher taxes on rich people…they might just know what they’re talking about.

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