So what happens if our credit rating goes poof?

[originalpckelly]

That would really suck, who would bail us out then?

[RoyGBiv]

1. Wait a couple weeks ...

We're about to find out.

[DearAbby]

2. I am floored

honestly took me ten years to clean up my credit after divorcing the sloth I had married. I would apply for credit cards, and the reply back was

I quote:

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

They hand over 85 BILLION dollars, no strings attached, to the same fecking idiots that got us into this mess...I mean shit, talk about unequal treatment here.

[originalpckelly]

3. Oh no it's 10x worse, it's now 800 billion, plus the AIG and other bailouts.

It's pretty fucking bad.

[DearAbby]

10. You're right

I hear today, Paulson wants a 'clean, quick' bailout. They scare you to death with a mushroom *financial meltdown* cloud, then rush you to fork over the cash. It's a 21st Century hold-up. Alarms. bells and whistles are going off on this one folks.

[originalpckelly]

4. I'm talking about government credit rating too.

We've had a rock solid one for years and years, who knows what this will do for that.

We assume other countries will be able to lend to us, even if our national rating remains Aaa.

[FlaDem83]

5. Mayor Bloomberg mentioned this is a concern of his

the other day too. I am also concerned about it. Not only do we send our money everyday to Iraq and Saudi Arabia for oil, but we also rely on other countries (read: China) to buy our debt to allow us to function on a daily basis. If our credit rating is downgraded, we won't have a problem with just the credit markets seizing up, there will be nothing left to seize up. It is a real and scary possibility.

[originalpckelly]

6. Since they managed to sweep this under the rug of government...

the 800 lbs elephant in the room is going to trip up the government.

[peanut2010]

7. That`s simple it might even be a good thing

Live within your means buy only what you can pay cash for.I took that step about a year ago got rid of the credit cards.Found out that things I thought I needed I didn`t really need thats one reason there are so many yard sales people buying useless junk that they don`t need.

[originalpckelly]

8. I have no credit cards...

I was imprecise in my opening post, I intended the national credit rating. Our government's credit rating in other words.

[peanut2010]

13. That might be good also

If they couldn`t spend more than they take in people might take more intrest in what is going on so maybe we wouldn`t get in such a mess.

[smoogatz]

16. If rising interest rates trigger hyper-inflation, your cash won't be worth much.

On the other hand, if they create a deflationary slow-down (a classic depression), you'll probably lose your job and won't have any cash to buy stuff with. But other than that, sure--it'd probably be a good thing.

[Imagevision]

9. two way street, retailers would go belly-up also...

[Lex]

11. Looks like other countries' markets were having problems too?

:shrug:

[johnaries]

12. It already has. Try to get a loan tomorrow with a rating less than

750.

[Odin2005]

14. Hyperinflation.

If governments can no longer sell bonds to make up for deficits they start debasing the currency.

[smoogatz]

15. We'd have to pay much higher interest rates on our debt (i.e., treasury bonds).

So our deficits would balloon even further, growth of the national debt would accelerate, hyper-inflation would be likely, and interest rates across the board would skyrocket, causing a slow-down in everything from housing starts to retail sales to product launches from corporations, which would force the government to print more money to keep the economy from collapsing, which would in turn trigger even more inflation. The stock and bond markets would both tank (think Dow 2000), and even cash would be all-but worthless. A disaster, in other words.

[SoCalDem]

17. "...if our credit rating goes poof?..."

:rofl: