235 years ago today...

[the ghost of guitarplayer]

Well it'll save me buying a newspaper. Now all we need is a sports page and a couple of nice juicy tits on page 3 and we'll be there.

Pg 3

[the ghost of guitarplayer]

Well it'll save me buying a newspaper. Now all we need is a sports page and a couple of nice juicy tits on page 3 and we'll be there.

Sport

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rme8-JbB5MA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djjoLv7MR1k[/youtube]

[Voodoo Billy]

Do you think they go down in the box?

[Voodoo Billy]

And those new kits could revolutionize women's football.

[black francis]

Dibs on the one far right.

[black francis]

That's good for another donation to the cup.

[Voodoo Billy]

That's good for another donation to the cup.

I'll send you a donation. You may need a bucket. Anyone on here residing in Germany (:wink:) who could send us copies?

[black francis]

Kook! Your time is now!

[Scouser]

Critics of Barack Obama – a popular category nowadays – argue that his team bungled its response to the downgrade of America's credit rating. The White House, opponents allege, plumped for a policy of shooting the messenger. But sometimes messengers deserve to be, if not shot, then at least given a sharp kick up the backside. That certainly applies to Standard & Poor's, which is one of the three big rating agencies that fouled up so spectacularly during the sub-prime crisis – and which on Friday night demoted the US government's credit rating. Even so, it is possible for a bad witness suffering a severe conflict of interest – a description that applies to S&P, and to its rivals Moody's & Fitch – to make the occasional pertinent observation. And when S&P downgraded the US long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+, it was doing so for some sound reasons – because of the appalling immaturity of the Republican Tea Partiers in their negotiations over the debt ceiling. In essence, this downgrade was earned not by Mr Obama and Timothy Geithner; it marks the sterling efforts of Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann.

First, though: the problems with S&P and the other credit-rating agencies. They can be boiled down to three: first, the rating agencies have a long list of howlers; second, they are subject to massive conflicts of interest; third, they do not deserve the status given to them in public debates about economics and policymaking. The howlers should be obvious – from the savings and loan debacle of the 80s, to the Asian financial crisis of the 90s, to Enron at the turn of the last decade, to the sub-prime bubble, there is always one (if not all three) of the big ratings agencies to be found partly culpable. Usually this takes the form of assuring creditors that the risks of a bank, a company or a dodgy credit derivative are really minimal. One example can stand in for dozens of others. As Lehman Brothers headed towards collapse in summer 2008, S&P gave the bank an A rating.

At least part of the reason for these botched calls must be the elephant-sized conflict of interest. The rating agencies are usually paid to rate companies and their products by those very same companies.

Finally, the rating agencies have the point of view of moneylenders rather than economists or equity investors or citizens. That does not make them wrong; it just means they are partisan. Yet whether it is America this year or Britain in the runup to last May's general election, what S&P and its counterparts say has an excessive impact on media coverage and political debate. In the UK, George Osborne used this to his advantage, claiming "Britain faces the disaster of having its international credit rating downgraded" even after Moody's ranked UK debt as "resilient". In the US, rightwingers claim that unless spending cuts are made pronto, the rating agencies will consign Washington to the same credit rank as Kigali. So the rating agencies may be bad, biased witnesses, but fault must lie with politicians in the US and in the UK for allowing them to dominate the economic discussion. If Fitch and the rest are providing a public service and doing so badly, there is scope for governments to regulate them much harder – or even to set up alternatives: the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang suggests that governments set up an independent UN version of a credit-rating agency.

That is one species of political failure, here is another: S&P made its downgrade not so much because of Washington's fiscal position but because "the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges". This follows on from the debt-ceiling talks, when Ms Bachmann and her fellow Republicans talked about a possible government default as if it were no more troubling than a trip to the spa. In short, this is the Tea Party's downgrade.

[Ivan]

Critics of Barack Obama – a popular category nowadays – argue that his team bungled its response to the downgrade of America's credit rating. The White House, opponents allege, plumped for a policy of shooting the messenger. But sometimes messengers deserve to be, if not shot, then at least given a sharp kick up the backside. That certainly applies to Standard & Poor's, which is one of the three big rating agencies that fouled up so spectacularly during the sub-prime crisis – and which on Friday night demoted the US government's credit rating. Even so, it is possible for a bad witness suffering a severe conflict of interest – a description that applies to S&P, and to its rivals Moody's & Fitch – to make the occasional pertinent observation. And when S&P downgraded the US long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+, it was doing so for some sound reasons – because of the appalling immaturity of the Republican Tea Partiers in their negotiations over the debt ceiling. In essence, this downgrade was earned not by Mr Obama and Timothy Geithner; it marks the sterling efforts of Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann.

First, though: the problems with S&P and the other credit-rating agencies. They can be boiled down to three: first, the rating agencies have a long list of howlers; second, they are subject to massive conflicts of interest; third, they do not deserve the status given to them in public debates about economics and policymaking. The howlers should be obvious – from the savings and loan debacle of the 80s, to the Asian financial crisis of the 90s, to Enron at the turn of the last decade, to the sub-prime bubble, there is always one (if not all three) of the big ratings agencies to be found partly culpable. Usually this takes the form of assuring creditors that the risks of a bank, a company or a dodgy credit derivative are really minimal. One example can stand in for dozens of others. As Lehman Brothers headed towards collapse in summer 2008, S&P gave the bank an A rating.

At least part of the reason for these botched calls must be the elephant-sized conflict of interest. The rating agencies are usually paid to rate companies and their products by those very same companies.

Finally, the rating agencies have the point of view of moneylenders rather than economists or equity investors or citizens. That does not make them wrong; it just means they are partisan. Yet whether it is America this year or Britain in the runup to last May's general election, what S&P and its counterparts say has an excessive impact on media coverage and political debate. In the UK, George Osborne used this to his advantage, claiming "Britain faces the disaster of having its international credit rating downgraded" even after Moody's ranked UK debt as "resilient". In the US, rightwingers claim that unless spending cuts are made pronto, the rating agencies will consign Washington to the same credit rank as Kigali. So the rating agencies may be bad, biased witnesses, but fault must lie with politicians in the US and in the UK for allowing them to dominate the economic discussion. If Fitch and the rest are providing a public service and doing so badly, there is scope for governments to regulate them much harder – or even to set up alternatives: the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang suggests that governments set up an independent UN version of a credit-rating agency.

That is one species of political failure, here is another: S&P made its downgrade not so much because of Washington's fiscal position but because "the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges". This follows on from the debt-ceiling talks, when Ms Bachmann and her fellow Republicans talked about a possible government default as if it were no more troubling than a trip to the spa. In short, this is the Tea Party's downgrade.

You really ought to consider a career in the press. You are a master of the language.

[Voodoo Billy]

Its a wonderful world The Open University.