Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

18 Apr 2011 12:59

tags

Biz: S&P official: Blame bickering politicians for this credit-rating mess

  • Looking at the gulf between the parties, it has never been wider than now. It takes a lot of political will to bridge this gulf.
  • Standard & Poor’s global head of sovereign ratings David Beers • Suggesting that both parties aren’t going far enough to fix their deficit problem which could lead to a decreased credit rating down the line. Essentially, they think that the two parties are so divided that they won’t solve the problem. Standard & Poor has downgraded the credit rating of many countries of late, most recently Britain. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Apr 2011 11:25

tags

World: Poll: Japanese people want PM Naoto Kan to step down over quake

  • 70% of those polled think Naoto Kan should step down source
  • » A revolving door: Were Naoto Kan to step down, he’d be the fifth prime minister in a row to step down or lose an election after a year or less on the job. From Shinzō Abe to Yasuo Fukuda to Taro Aso and Yukio Hatoyama, the job has not proven a stable one. And Kan is nearing his one-year mark in the position. But none of his recent predecessors had to deal with a crisis nearly as crazy as the double-teaming of Fukushima and the Sendai quake.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Apr 2011 10:26

tags

Culture: Volkswagen’s new Beetle: Clean design, no flower power

  • Here’s a photo of the new Volkswagen Beetle, updating the design of the last model, which has been around since the late ’90s. It looks … aerodynamic. Clearly, someone forgot that the Beetle has to look lumpy. That’s what the Beetle is! A lumpy car! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Apr 2011 09:52

tags

Biz: Amid deficit, S&P warns about U.S. credit-rating dangers afoot

  • Because the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.
  • A statement from the Standard & Poor’s • Revealing that, while they affirmed the United States’ spectacular “AAA” credit rating, they were suggesting the the outlook of said credit rating could go negative in the future. They want the country to figure out its budget mess by 2013. “If an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation is not begun by then,” they write. “this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.” Feel that? That’s the grumble of the money beast, wanting to be fed. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags