Ticker quotes the President of the American Bankers Association.
In this country, our word is our bond. The respect and admiration that
the United States and its institutions inspire around the world are
based on the certainty that when our nation makes a promise, we keep it.
.......Bear Stearns, Lehman, and the several hundred smaller failed banks......not to mention the local latest one, Anchor, which stiffed USBank and Associated Bank for about $140 million.....
...Congress seems poised to undermine U.S. credibility at home and abroad
by taking the extraordinary step of reneging on bills that our nation
has racked up. Ordinary Americans will bear the brunt of the damage if
our leaders don’t prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt
for the first time in history....
This from a guy whose members are borrowing from the Fed at zero and lending at up to 25%--and whose members were perfectly happy to suck up taxpayer dollars in "bailouts" (still not paid off.) This from a guy whose members happily packaged pure s&^t loans and sold them to the Feds--and who in a lot of cases committed fraud in the process.
As Ticker also observes,
[a] refusal to raise the debt ceiling is not a default.
A default would be the refusal to pay the interest and principal (or roll over the latter) when it came due.
The guy is so immersed in a culture of fraud and scams that he can't even define the terms correctly.
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World Yearns For Return Of Strong American Leadership
This week's United Nations General Assembly underscored how little influence President Barack Obama has on the world stage, and the longing among allies for a resurgence of strong American leadership, Peggy Noonan says.
In her column for The Wall Street Journal, Noonan says that conversations behind the scenes at the annual U.N. session indicated concern that American influence has waned, and nostalgia for the "old America" that set an example of leadership and success admired throughout the world.
"The world misses the old America, the one before the crash — the crashes — of the past dozen years," the author and former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan writes.
"Our friends, and we have many, speak almost poignantly of the dynamism, excellence, exuberance and leadership of the nation they had, for so many years, judged themselves against, been inspired by, attempted to emulate, resented," she says.
"As for those who are not America's friends, some seem still confused, even concussed, by the new power shift. What is their exact place in it? Will it last? Will America come roaring back? Can she? Does she have the political will, the human capital, the old capability?"
According to Noonan, one area that left few in doubt, is Obama's lack of clout among his counterparts.
"Barack Obama's reputation among this fellow international players has deflated, his stature almost collapsed. In diplomatic circles, attitudes toward his leadership have been declining for some time, but this week you could hear the disappointment, and something more dangerous: the sense that he is no longer, perhaps, all that relevant," Noonan writes.
Noonan attributes part of the phenomenon to Obama's irresolute handling of the Syrian crisis. She also suggests there are doubts about his judgment and a general sense that he lacks the weight to command respect.
Noonan quotes a former senior U.S. diplomat as saying, "World leaders are very negative about Obama," and are "disappointed, feeling he's not really in charge . . . The Western Europeans don't pay that much attention to him anymore."
Noonan concludes by highlighting the perceived slight from Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, in which he avoided a brief meeting or handshake, describing it as "embarrassing," and evidence of Obama's waning relevance.
She concludes by saying, "I wondered, as [Rouhani] spoke, how he sized up our president. In roughly 90 minutes of a speech followed by questions, he didn't say, and nobody thought to ask him."
As long as we demote American exceptionalism to American superiority, we may lose our devotion to the ideas that made and make us exceptional. As long as we equate American exceptionalism with being number one, we may fail to defend the things that make us exceptional: freedom of religion through separation of church and state, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and so on.
As long as we mistake American exceptionalism for American jingoism – USA! USA! USA! – we betray the very country we imagine we are celebrating.
And as long as we reduce our politics to personal attacks rather than focusing on competing policies, we will soon find ourselves anything but exceptional.
I am looking forward to real debate in Congress. I want to see principled people on different sides of an issue passionately (and politely) argue. This is part of who we are. When we demonize the other as un-American, we spit on the very heart of America.
Peggy Noonan? Seriously?
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