ed: And manoman, was he right about that:
“Don’t call my bluff,” the president said. “I am not afraid to veto and I will take it to the American people.”
If Moody’s downgrades the United States, “it will be a tax increase on every American,” he said.
There needs to be a long-term debt extension, the president argued.
“This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this,” he said.
Then he abruptly ended the meeting, saying, “see you tomorrow.”
Well the Dem friendly Goldman Sach’s has done it:
Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, from 2% and 3.25%. Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012.
The main reason for the downgrade is that the high-frequency information on overall economic activity has continued to fall substantially short of our expectations. … Some of this weakness is undoubtedly related to the disruptions to the supply chain—specifically in the auto sector—following the East Japan earthquake. By our estimates, this disruption has subtracted around ½ percentage point from second-quarter GDP growth. We expect this hit to reverse fully in the next couple of months, and this could add ½ point to third-quarter GDP growth. Moreover, some of the hit from higher energy costs is probably also temporary, as crude prices are down on net over the past three months. But the slowdown of recent months goes well beyond what can be explained with these temporary effects. … final demand growth has slowed to a pace that is typically only seen in recessions. .. Moreover, if the economy returns to recession—not our forecast, but clearly a possibility given the recent numbers …
Recall Everyone 