The Anti-Climactic ‘Downgrade’ of the U.S.
If we needed any confirmation of what humorless creatures bankers are, we got that today with Standard & Poor’s warning of a “negative outlook” on the credit-rating of the U.S. economy.
Last year around this time, I’ll admit I got a good chuckle when Ben Bernanke played his April Fool’s Day joke on the world, and claimed that he had “finished quantitative easing, and begun the Federal Reserve’s exit strategy”. It was the sort of mad-cap humor Bernanke had previously made famous with phrases like “Goldilocks economy” and “soft-landing”.
However, for April Fools Day this year, what do we get from Helicopter Ben but the exact, same joke. Even worse, it’s been repeated ad nauseum by various other Fed-heads virtually every time one of them comes near a microphone. Only Fed-head Lockhart appears not to have gotten the memo on the “joke”, as he was busy talking about business-as-usual – i.e. quantitative easing to infinity.
Now here we are, a full two weeks past April Fools Day, and Standard & Poor’s belatedly decides to try its hand at humor. Guys, your timing is terrible! And it can’t even be redeemed by the punch-line you threw in, that “it may take until after the 2012 elections to get a proposal that addresses the concern.” In medical terms, this would be like a doctor quipping that he had “concern” for the health of one of his patients – at the patient’s wake...
full commentary: http://www.bullionbullscanada.…:us-commentary&Itemid=132