Debt Wish

The most perplexing question that arises out of the S&P downgrade of the U.S. debt is why we’re still worrying about what they think, after all the credit rating agencies’ previous political shenanigans.

The credit rating agencies claim they are entitled to their opinions under the First Amendment, even if they are bought and paid for by Wall Street.

But anything that the S&P offers should be taken with a huge grain of salt. As James Kwak pointed out on Baseline Scenario, the S&P’s latest insights into our financial/economic/political mess weren’t exactly earth-shattering. Apparently S&P wanted us to know that they recognized we’re suffering from political gridlock in Washington.

Thank you, S&P.

If the rating agency really wanted to offer a public service, it might have pointed out that the big banks’ bundled mortgages were nothing but trash before the economy collapsed.

But of course, as we know should all know by now, S&P and the other credit rating agencies are no more interested in peddling public service any more than they are interested in offering accurate information or thorough analysis.

S&P and the others are interested in serving the interests of Wall Street, and right now Wall Street is interested in forcing its austerity agenda on the rest of us. S&P is just trying to do its small part to batter any resistance we might offer.

Like the too big to fail banks, S&P has perfected the kind of lack of shame which allows it to dispense its financial opinions with a straight face, demanding to be taken seriously even though it missed the fraud, sloppiness and greed that led up the financial collapse.

Come to think of it, there is a more perplexing question about S&P: how come a swarm of federal investigators hasn’t taken the agency down, following up on the earlier Senate investigation?

Jane Hamsher has an interesting take on that question at firedoglake, posing the theory that S&P’s thrashing of the U.S. credit rating is an effort to pay back Republicans for keeping the authorities off S&P’s back. In the bigger picture, S&P is just trying to play its part in efforts by leaders of both parties to slash Social Security and other programs that benefit the middle class under the guise of balancing the budget.

But the S&P tipped its political hand by favoring cuts to social programs over tax loophole-closing, revenue-raising, or real defense cuts. When Wall Street and its cronies need help, the credit rating agencies will always do their part.

 

 

 

From Memphis to Madison

Last month I wrote about Martin Luther King’s last campaign, joining with Memphis sanitation workers to support their right to organize.

King was brought to Memphis by a local of the same union targeted more than 30 years later by Wisconsin’s governor, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. That’s where he died, murdered by an assassin’s bullet.

Amy Goodman, writing in Truthdig, suggested King’s spirit hovers over the demonstrations in Madison, which were sparked by the Wisconsin governor’s efforts to take away public workers’ collective bargaining rights.

The parallel is a potent one: both the mayor of Memphis and the governor of Wisconsin gained notoriety taking a tough line, refusing to negotiate.

One of the most striking aspects of the coverage of the demonstrations is the stark contrast between how the mainstream media talk about the showdown in Madison and how the demonstrators in the street talk about it. The media talks about budget deficits, politics and pension costs.

Ask the demonstrators why they’re in the street and they talk about fundamental unfairness – how workers and poor people have to sacrifice to solve the state’s budget crises while bankers who caused the financial crises that led to the state budget crisis continue to thrive without ever being asked to sacrifice.

Jane Hamsher, in Firedoglake, reminds us again how differently contracts that impact bankers are treated from those that impact working people. Remember those outrageous bankers’ bonuses? Those couldn’t be changed, we were told, because we are “a country of laws.”

But pensions for workers? Hey, we have a budget deficit to deal with!

Lots of people don’t have much connection or sympathy for unions, though the battles of union members contributed strongly to the development of the American middle class. Most people no longer have a grasp of that history.

That’s less true in Wisconsin, with its own long history of bitter labor struggles, full of many zigs and zags, ups and downs. The people there have less trouble connecting the struggles of labor unions to the well-being of the middle class.

More than 100 years ago, mill owners in Oshkosh crushed a strike and then had the leaders of the strike charged with conspiracy in an effort to crush the union. The workers brought in the famed firebrand trial lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend them.

In his closing statement, Darrow unleashed his full rhetorical arsenal. But his statement resonates with King’s Memphis campaign as much as it does in Madison, and helps put them in perspective. The case, Darrow insisted, was “but an episode in the great battle for human liberty, a battle which was commenced when the tyranny and oppression of man first caused him to impose upon his fellows and which will not end so long as the children of one father shall be compelled to toil to support the children of another in luxury and ease.”