What's the Problem?

If we put bad gas in the car and it runs bad, it's foolish to say the car should be junked. If we are so foolish, then we have two problems--bad gas and the inability, if not an unwillingness, to identify the problem.

Now that our sovereign debt has suffered a downgrade, we seem to be suffering from both a cognitive and affective disorder. Not only can we not identify the problem, but we are not willing to.

It's hard to be highly rated if our republican governors (the people that operate the vehicle of government) are intellectually impaired if not emotionally disturbed!

We are officially "stupid if not crazy"...not exactly an optimal environment for economic growth and sustainable debt reduction. AA+ may be too kind.

The conservative critique of the downgrade is a shock-and-awe barrage of cognitive deficiency and affective disorder. Blaming the President's policy program for the downgrade, considering his tax-expenditure and spending-cut policies align with the conservative program, miserably fails the test of cognitive capacity. At the same time, both the President and conservatives reference Ronald Reagan with the intent to affect popular sentiment. Both reference an era of stagflation and debt, only surpassed by what we have now, as a reasonable way to gain support for a policy program that causes the problem to be solved. Going back to the example of the car, this shows an irrational, affective fondness for exacting detriment since, surely, no one is that stupid.

Reagan acolytes want to fill the tank with bad gas. Even though rational folks keep telling conservatives that the gas is bad, they keep filling the tank with bad ideas. So the car spits and sputters down the road to ruin with Reaganytes at the wheel claiming what a smooth ride it is.

Putting bad gas in the car and driving it over a cliff is just bleep'n nuts, except, of course, if you get bailed out before it goes off the cliff and you survive the victims to cash in the default swaps.