Dumb & Dumber

So here’s the tally as best as I can remember it (Please hum along): John Boehner is blaming the Administration for the S&P call to lower the credit rating. Barack Obama is blaming the Republicans, S&P, the Japanese earthquake, my mother in law and George W. Bush. The S&P is blaming both branches of the government (probably the most accurate assessment).

Our Quick Poll, by the way, shows opinion pretty evenly split on who to blame.  But the poll is young.  (Vote here.)

The Wall Street Journal blames S&P as well, at least in part, and provided a play-by-play of Downgrade Friday, wherein, at the 11^th hour, S&P allegedly admitted to Treasury that maybe its assumptions of future debt load were a little overstated. Wondering how confident the folks at S&P are now seeing that the rival ratings agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, haven’t seen it necessary to travel the same path as their competitor.

Taking a more rationale view than many in the media, GlobeSt.com blogger Joel Ross in a recent post made this comment: “The S&P action was not a surprise to anyone, and it is really just a political statement, and not a reflection of the ability of the US Treasury to pay its interest and roll its debt. At least in the short run. There is complete lack of leadership in Washington, and a dysfunctional government, but at least the Tea Party did force everyone to start to deal with the issues that we have all known about for many years-entitlements. Tea Party solutions may be dumb, but someone had to really shake up the system.”

And, indeed, the Tea Party suggestions were dumb. As dumb as the deaf ears of insiders in the Beltway. As dumb as proceeding with acknowledged faulty assumptions. Ross is right.  The system is pretty well shaken up. Too bad there’s no one to trust enough to get the shaking to stop.  Unless of course, it is us. As Ross himself said, ignore the idiots in DC and get on with business. Until the roof falls in, it’s commerce that’s keeping it up.