RUTHFULLY YOURS

So, Barack Obama took to the airwaves again to reassure the American people and, not least, the world’s investors that the United States (as the AP reports ^[1] it) “always is and has been a triple-A country.”

No, I don’t know how to parse that either. Is it supposed to be like nunc stans of a mystical experience or God’s view sub specie aeternitatis?

Or maybe it’s just nervous blather?

But how about this:

Obama said financial markets around the world “still believe our credit is triple-A. I and the world’s investor’s agree.”

There’s one tiny problem with President Downgrade’s declaration. “The world’s investors” seem to disagree. How do I know? One clue is the behavior of “the world’s investors,” evidenced, for example, by the behavior of the stock market, which as I write is down another 500 points. (Thanks again ^[2], Barack! Boy are you ever spreading the wealth around.) It was down about 300 points a bit earlier, but, as the Durdge Report put it, “It tanked while he talked.”

And where’s Barney “Mr. Fannie Mae” Frank? How often ^[3] has he said that the “alarm” over the condition of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac is exaggerated? Oops, “the world’s investors” disagree about that, too. S&P just downgraded ^[4] both entities, among other companies.

Do you want to recapture America’s triple-A rating? How about instituting some growth encouraging policies for a change? For a start, dismantle the EPA: its chief effect is not to save the environment but to act as a politicized job-killing albatross. Then, stop talking about raising taxes on everyone and everything. Sure, you could, and should, listen to Glenn Reynolds about some of the folks that need to be paying more taxes (really: don;t miss this: “Why the GOP should give Obama the higher taxes he wants ^[5]“). But you want to get the economy going, right? You need a new narrative, brother.