As the stock markets around the globe plummet due to the downgrading of US credit rating, president Obama steps up to the podium today in a special address to the nation. I thought I'd listen in...
The president begins with an explanation that even though the US credit rating was downgraded from AAA, it is not so much that the agency doubts our ability to pay our debt, but, rather, they doubt our political system's ability to act. The markets think our credit rating is AAA. Warren Buffet, a man who knows something about the market, would give the US a AAAA rating if possible, or so the president says.
In other words, pay no attention to the reality of our current credit rating - pay attention to the IDEA of our credit rating. As an insider in the Bush White House said not so many years ago, "we're an empire now, so we create our own reality" and the reality the president wants you to believe in is that our credit rating is not what it actually is. He repeats that we are a AAA country.
