I have done the same thing other times to my embarrassment,
I would really like to hear your opinion on the US reelection issue that I expounded.

I can say that because I am close to your age...

anthonyc, there is a big difference between you and i. you talk a lot, but have little we can look to as proof. you claimed to have a doctorate, then denied you said so. when i checked the archives, and found the thread, you went silent. yes, i would not last 5 minutes in your world. the world i choose to live in is populated by people who do not consider the net worth of a person as the measure of his real worth. it is populated by people of character, and integrity, who do not resort to habitual LYING. it is populated by people who DO, not TALK. you claim to be this motorsports expert, but your expertise lies in looking, and reading. you have DONE nothing. at least, as broke as i was during the days when i was actively in the sport, i used limited resources to field rally cars that dueled with the likes of Roger Clark, Anders Kullang, james McCrae, Timo Makinen, and Ari Vatinen. unlike you would do, i will never say that i ever beat them. not even on one stage. but i was a part of it. you will always be a windbag spectator, looking in from the outside.

further, anthonyc, my driver turns 63 next week. I GUARANTEE that even in our advanced ages,we can still take you, anytime. with , or without, pace notes. without would be even easier.

Devin11,

No problema, we all make mistakes. Post more often

Supercommittee failure could trigger US credit downgrade, economists warn

Economists predict dire consequences if committee fails to reach agreement on how to reduce America's massive debt

reddit this

Dominic Rushe in New York

guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 November 2011 12.45 EST
Article history

Supercommittee member Chris Van Hollen (centre) said: 'We are leaving no stone unturned, negotiations continue and we are looking to find a way'. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Economists are warning of dire consequences if US politicians fail to make progress this weekend in tense talks aimed at reducing America's massive deficit ahead of a Wednesday deadline.
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The bi-partisan congressional super-committee is charged with drawing up plans for a $1.2tn reduction in the nation's deficit by the middle of next week. Failure to do so will trigger an automatic "sequester" that will make cuts of that size to defence and social welfare programmes starting in 2013. But the two sides seem far from finding a solution after clashing over tax revenues.

While Wednesday is the official deadline for the supercommittee to report back, it has until Monday to tell the Congressional Budget Office about the impact any plan they send to Congress will have on the budget.

"Time is running out. What I can say is we are leaving no stone unturned, negotiations continue and we are looking to find a way. We recognise what's at stake and we're hoping to reach an agreement," Democrat committee member Chris Van Hollen told CNN Friday.

Failure to reach an agreement on what is essentially a small reduction on the deficit – just 0.7% of gross domestic product in 2013 – could trigger another rating's agency downgrade, warned economists including Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist at Capital Economics.

"With all this pressure to reach an agreement, it really doesn't look good if they can't find a solution," said Ashworth.

He said that the US had much more serious problems that would need tackling first.

"The US is already spending 7% of GDP on Medicare and Medicaid [the government-run health schemes] and that will be up to 10-11% in the next two decades. Debt is on an unsustainable path, and if they can't reach an agreement on this, it doesn't look good for the future."

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's cited the "extremely difficult" political conditions in Washington when it made the controversial decision to downgrade its rating on US debt in August. The firm also put the US "on watch' implying further cuts could come.

Morgan Stanley analyst Christine Tan predicted earlier this month that there was now a one-in-three possibility of another downgrade.

"If the supercommittee fails to reach a $1.2tn deficit reduction deal, if such a deal relies more upon accounting changes than real deficit reduction, or if congressional action lessens the impact of the $1.2tn automatic trigger, we believe this could potentially provide S&P with a pretext to downgrade the US further from AA+ to AA," wrote Tan in a note to investors.

HSBC's chief economist, Kevin Logan, said a "procrastination" solution was now the most likely outcome, with an agreement that specifies targets for spending cuts and revenue increases but leaves the details to congressional committees.

Passing the the hard choices back to congressional committees would lead to "lengthy and heated battles over the US deficit throughout 2012, we believe. The rating agencies might be tolerant of this for a while, but failure to make clear progress could lead to downgrades of the US sovereign credit rating at some point next year," Logan said.

David Semmens, US economist at Standard Chartered, said: "I think they will be forced into action. If not the consequences will be long-lasting. Failure will further highlight the political deadlock in Washington. It's very important the the supercommittee sends a strong message to the markets that the US is getting its house in order."

Stock markets are already under pressure form the credit crisis now sweeping Europe and further signals of a lack of leadership in the US could have negative consequences for the markets, said Semmens.

One of the major sticking points facing the supercommittee is what to do with Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2012. Republicans are against any agreement that does not extend current income-tax rates.

Democrats want them extended only for lower- and middle-income Americans. Extending all the Bush tax cuts would add about $3.7tn to the deficit over the next decade.

Like the automatic deficit cuts, the Bush-era tax cuts too will automatically expire unless an agreement is reached. Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody's Analytics, said: "We will see deficit reductions whether the super committee makes an agreement or not."

He said the "level of enmity" between Republicans and Democrats did raise concern, but he expects that some agreement will be reached.

If the Bush Tax-era Tax cuts are allowed to die for everyone, about 4 trillion dollars will come into the coffers of government in ten years. That would take care of a huge chunk of the debt payments needed to sway market confidence in the macro and fiscal rebound of the USA.

Bloomberg: Tax the Middle Class!

By David Weigel

| Posted Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011, at 9:43 AM ET
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When Mike Bloomberg talks about Washington, we all start assuming he's up for a presidential bid. Bloomberg waded into the supercommittee failure yesterday at the same time that his adviser Kevin Sheekey was saying "Mike Bloomberg has the ability to be the best parts of Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, and Bill Gates all rolled up into one." (To be fair, when Kevin Sheekey orders a sandwich, he says "turkey, cheese, Mike Bloomberg should be president, hold the mayo." Bloomberg went on CNN to bang on, and he touched the hard-to-reach sweet spot of the Washington deficit scold.

All the president has to do is make one simple declaratory statement and all of this will come together. And that statement is, he should say, I am going to veto any extension of any of the Bush-era tax cuts, not just those for the wealthy, but for everybody, because it's everybody's problem.

And most of the money that you need to close the deficit is in the average middle class person, not with the wealthy. The wealthy pay a very -- maybe a disproportionate percentage of their income in taxes. Some people say maybe it should be worse.

But the total amount of taxes that the wealthy pay do not go anywhere remotely toward solving the problem.

Everybody is part of the solution. Everybody gets benefits from government. And I think everybody should pay.

Maybe Bloomberg and Sheekey are pointing to a post-mayoral role, the politician/billionnaire who calls for everybody to sacrifice -- Pete Peterson 2.0. But when Bloomberg talks about this, the punditocracy thinks of the coming lull between the GOP primary and the party conventions, when there'll be talk of a third party campaign. And, hey, the NBC/WSJ poll gives Bloomberg 13 percent support in a three-way presidential race -- Barack Obama gets a 9-point overall lead. Bloomberg makes it easier for Obama to win!

I don't buy it. National polls are fun and somewhat meaningless. A Bloomberg campaign would be fighting for electoral votes in 50 states. Where's he likely to get the most support? There are portions of the country that agree with Bloomberg's straight-talk liberalism, and portions of the country that have been ope to third party candidates. Surprise: These are the places Democrats count on to win elections. Go back and look at the 1992 map. Ross Perot ran on a program of raising taxes and cutting spending to close the deficit. Nationally, he got an average of 19 percent, but he was strongest in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, and in deep red plains states -- 24 percent in Washington/Oregon, 30 percent in Maine, 22 percent in Connecticut, 26 percent in Wyoming and Montana. Make the Perot candidate anti-gun and pro-gay marriage, and he's weaker in those red states while appealing to liberals in the blue states. He starts off strong in the New York metroplex, where Barack Obama has been showing unusual weakness. No, the Bloomberg flirtation is a bigger threat to Democrats than it is to the GOP.