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Greece Rated World’s Worst Credit Risk
USA in Worse Shape Financially than Greece
 
 
Mere hours before Standard and Poor’s cut Greece’s credit rating by three levels and branded the debilitated Mediterranean nation with the world’s lowest debt grade for its bonds; Pimco’s Bill Gross told CNBC that the United States’ financial status was much worse than Greece’s. Pimco which manages over $1.2 TRillion in bond funds, according to Gross will NOT be buying U.S. Treasury bonds. The “CCC” credit rating for Greece was not unexpected; the evaluation by Gross of the United States’ fiscal ills is no surprise for regular readers of Rajjpuut’s Folly.  
For most of the taxpaying public, the news from Gross and Pimco, is a savage blow. Pimco, based in Newport Beach, Calif., runs the largest bond fund in the world. Gross confirmed a report Friday that Pimco has little interest in US debt and its low yields that are in place despite an ugly national balance sheet.   "Why wouldn't an investor buy Canada with a better balance sheet or Australia with a better balance sheet with interest rates at 1 or 2 or 3 percent higher?" he said. "It simply doesn't make any sense."
 
As we’ve mentioned many times herein, the combination of roughly $14.5 TRillion in acknowledged national debt; many TRillions more in entitlement debt (social security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) which was never set aside by congress according to legal requirements but rather was spent on ever bigger and bigger government; and the crushing weight of UNfunded future liabilities (the average person paying into these programs over the year is now legally entitled to receive up to 3.1 times their pay-in on average) owed by all those entitlement programs . . . right now stands at roughly $116 TRillion. That is a number roughly 2.16 times the average gross domestic product (GDP) of the entire planet and roughly 7.7 times our American GDP.   And in case you’ve seen other figures . . . it’s simple: they are lies. $116 TRillion is the straight skinny.  In straightforward language, if these people were running public companies and pulled off what they've pulled off on you . . . everyone of them would be in prison for a long, long time. 
Government accounting of the situation has been abetting the lying progressive politicians in these manners for roughly 55 years in the same way that the government now tells us that unemployment is 9.1% in the country (the real figure is roughly 17.8% which includes all those who don’t have jobs that really want one but who don’t fit the government’s narrow definition); in the same way that the government gave us figures about how many jobs that the $787 Billion Obama stimulus “saved or created.” In case you haven’t figured things out yet, Pilgrim, your government is run by the “political class,” that is, by a special interest group whose main purpose in life is to keep the fat, cozy and often senseless bureaucratic jobs created in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere; and for the politicians who passed those laws creating those jobs to get themselves re-elected. They are NOT accountable to you and certainly feel no compunction to tell you the truth EVER. About 20% of the Republicans and 4% of the Democrats in Congress right now are working for you, that’s why those idiots in congress can’t get anything right, because their definition of “right” means “best for them and for the political class” NOT “best for you.”
Bill Gross’ appraisal should stand as an out and out warning to all taxpaying Americans as to the level of damage that the policies of Barack Obama’s administration; and those of Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve Banking System have inflicted upon our economy that so severely undercut the American dollar that unless . . .
1)     House Speaker John Boehner stands by his declaration that “Any increase in the national debt ceiling must be matched ‘dollar-for-dollar’ by a decrease in the budget (our 2011 budget expiring in October is $3.65 TRillion and increases the deficit by $1.59 TRillion)
2)    The house and the senate agree and pass such a program
3)    And President Obama signs it into law rather than vetoing it
 . . . unless such actions take place by roughly August 1, 2011, Rajjpuut predicts that the S&P rating for U.S. Treasury notes will drop very close to Greece’s.  Of course since Obama's handler, multi-billionaire currency-speculator George Soros, would benefit immensely and perhaps double his net worth if the American Dollar collapsed; lost it's 52-year seat as the World's Reserve Currency; and hyper-inflation hit America's shores, which way will the smart money** bet.
 
Moody’s cut its rating on Greece on June 1 to Caa1, leaving only Ecuador as a worse sovereign risk. The S&P rating abasement put Greece well below Ecuador. No other sovereign nation is graded as low as CCC by S&P, according to an S&P spokesman’s e-mail communications.  
“The ratings agencies are now playing catch-up with the market,” said Gianluca Salford, a fixed-income strategist at J.P. Morgan in London. “The market is pricing in a very high probability that there will be a credit event around Greece. The agencies are just catching up to the negativity that’s already priced in by the market, not the other way around.”
Moody’s gave a wake-up call to America when it recently refused to lower the country’s AAA rating but issued a warning that the USA was “trending negative.” The last time such an occurrence hit this country was on December 8, 1941, the day after the Empire of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It appears that Moody’s and S&P are waiting to see what happens in the upcoming congressional debate over raising the nation’s debt limit. President Obama is asking that the debt ceiling be increased by $2.7 TRillion to $17.0 TRillion. Boehner and congressional Republicans, as we’ve mentioned are saying that any increase in the debt ceiling requires a “dollar-for-dollar” reduction in the budget. IF, a huge IF, if Obama and the progressive Democrats have any sense, than Rajjpuut estimates that the most likely compromise would be a debt-limit increase of $1.7 TRillion (to $16 TRillion) and a 2012 budget of $1.95 TRillion. Those numbers might actually turn the economy around so markedly that they’d have a chance of surviving in power after November, 2012 elections. If, a teensy-tiny if, any other deal comes around, Rajjpuut believes that Moody’s and S&P will NOT compromise and will NOT endanger those who read their evaluations . . . but will severely downgrade the United States’ Credit ratings. So severely, perhaps that paying near loan-shark’s rates on our treasuries will NOT be out of the question. Enjoy your day, taxpayers!
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
 
 
** Soros' hedge funds and those run by progressives all over the world are buying up farm land like crazy apparently betting that the collapse of the American economy will lead to a worldwide famine.  Nice people, Rajjpuut bets they just want to put a lot of acreage in foodstuffs to help out in case anything goes wrong?!
 
 
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The 10th Amendment of the Constitution is just one more part of the United States Constitution that Barack Obama finds objectionable. While NOT deliberately spitting on two different*** Arizona laws (created because of federal government dithering over the little matter of immigration law enforcement to help border states) or on the Constitution itself, Obama’s disdain for real American statesmanship and the real American Constitution is obvious. To think just seventeen short months ago he rose his hand and swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" -- after his actions of those past months who can ever believe anything the man says? Obama and his administration have expressed “grave concern” over both Arizona illegal immigration laws but is going to court to fight the most recently written one. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, spoiling for a fight on 10th Amendment grounds called Obama's decision "outrageous" but "not surprising" after Obama administration officials confirmed Friday that they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the state's anti-illegal immigration law. "Our federal government should be using its legal resources to fight illegal immigration, not the law-abiding citizens of Arizona," the fiesty Brewer said.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Attorney General, Terry Goddard, said his office plans to withdraw as the state's lawyers in legal challenges to the law, leaving Brewer's handpicked attorneys to defend it. Goddard, a Democrat said to be planning to run for the Arizona governorship for a third time after two earlier failures to win election, and Brewer a Republican have squabbled repeatedly about the law. To a certain extent that’s not been a bad thing.

After Goddard made his objections known to the earliest permutation of the Arizona law, A) the original law was strengthened B) provisions were added to directly address Goddard’s and Obama’s and many Democrats’ objections to the possibility of police officers using the new law as an excuse for “racial profiling” and C) Brewer had a special provision added saying that the Arizona governor could defend the new version of the law however she chose, rather than being required to fight legal challenges to the law and her state’s rights to protect itself from the illegal invasion from the south (which has made Phoenix the #2 kidnap city in the world only behind drug capital Bogota, Colombia) with a lukewarm state attorney general in center stage. Brewer said "I will ensure the immigration laws we passed are vigorously defended all the way to the United States Supreme Court if necessary, where this reasonable law will ultimately be found constitutional," something she wasn’t sure Goddard was prepared to do whole-heartedly.

The law taking effect July 29 requires state police officers to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that he or she is in the country illegally. Five or six legal challenges have been filed to the law since April virtually all claiming that the new law will lead to “racial profiling” and it’s the federal government’s responsibility to regulate immigration. Duh! And what about the present climate when the federal government believes illegal immigration benefits it? Mr. Obama has made no pretext of defending the border. He is seeking so-called comprehensive immigration “reform,” a weasel term meaning the power to grant citizenship to the 14-25 million illegals now in the country since it's generally accepted that 80% or more of them would vote Democratic and ensure Obama’s re-election in 2012. He has thus far been told he hasn't the votes to pass such a bill into law.

On Friday evening, June 18, Brewer's defense team asked a federal judge to throw out suits by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging the law's constitutionality. Recently, Obama officials confirmed plans to file their lawsuit after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with a TV station in Ecuador (nice that U.S. citizens hear about the matter from a foreign TV station, eh?) earlier this month that the administration would challenge the law in court, though officials had long said the issue was under review. The administration at this point is just building its case and definitely expects to file suit. Brewer told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, she's ready for a fight.

"What a disappointment," Brewer said on Thursday, adding she was shocked the administration would make such an announcement on foreign TV without giving Arizona officials the news first. "We are NOT going to back away from this issue," Brewer said. "We are going to pursue it, we're going to be very aggressive," Brewer said. "We'll meet them in court ... And we will win. The citizens of America agree with Arizona."

Meanwhile the Obama administration has thus far failed to deliver promised National Guard troops to the border states. Obama’s original promise was to send unarmed National Guardsmen to “relieve” the paperwork and other pressures from U.S. Border Patrol officers . . . but even that pathetic pledge has been broken.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut
*** Obama has also let known his displeasure with an earlier Arizona law that allows the state to suspend the licenses or refuse licensing of businesses repeatedly violating the national immigration laws by KNOWINGLY hiring illegal aliens. Attorney General Eric Holder has called both laws "unconstitutional." Apparently, in the case of the employers' law, once again Eric Holder has not read the law he's criticizing. The latest provision to the nation's immigration laws along those lines passed in the mid '80's says that the Federal Government canNOT get involved in licensing of businesses and that aspect is left for state regulation.
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