From the Daily Caller:
Documentarian Michael Moore has an innovative suggestion for how President Obama should deal with the nation’s first-ever credit downgrade by Standard & Poor’s: Arrest S&P’s CEO.
“Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down the economy in 2008& now they will do it again,” Moore profoundly tweeted Monday.
So we should shoot the messenger? Criticism of U.S. borrowing, it seems, should not be tolerated. Or as George Orwell once put it, in times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. And officialdom does not like revolutionary acts. And so it looks like Michael Moore will be getting his wish, or a version of it at least. From the Financial Times:
Deven Sharma is stepping down as president of Standard & Poor’s only weeks after the rating agency issued an unprecedented downgrade of the credit of the US, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr Sharma will remain as an adviser to S&P’s owner, McGraw-Hill, for four months and leave the company at the end of the year, they said.
Mr Sharma will be replaced as S&P president by Douglas Peterson, chief operating officer of Citibank, the banking unit of Citigroup, they said.
People close to the company said the search for Mr Sharma’s replacement has been going on for six months, and was triggered by the split of its data, pricing and analytics business from its ratings business. The creation of that new group, McGraw-Hill Financial, reduced the scope of Mr Sharma’s oversight, they said.
I joked that Obama might claim S&P were unlawful enemy combatants. But the reality is far more prosaic, for more utilitarian. The grinding machine of American imperialism, and its multi-trillion-dollar burden blusters and blunders through the harsh wasteland of the 21st Century, an unstoppable destructo-juggernaut of endless war, endless bailouts, and deeper and deeper indebtedness, and small-fry like S&P — wrong about a lot, but finally right about something — can never pull the plug. They will be brushed out of the way like flies, ’til America either mends its ways or finally stares into the cruel brown eyes of its creditor, its supplier, its fixer. And until then, dissent will not be tolerated.
azizonomics 
Milton Friedman destroys Michael Moore.
Richard Nixon, bitchez
Aziz, do you really think S&P downgrade was because S&P thought it was necessary ?
My point of view is that this is a cooordinated action rather than a epiphany. they just wanted to send out a mild-signal to the market followed up by the economic-data points to support this downgrade, Philly fed, NFP numbers etc. It has caused the exact effect they wanted, influx in UStreasury bonds and the withdrawal of overseas credit by the American Pensionfunds.
And about milton friedman, he’s making a illogical argument, as if people really had choice back then. Take unsafer car for 13 dollars cheaper, but have a better stereo then our competitor. Choices in industry is always asymetric therfor i wave aside this movie as “shockingly”.
Michael moore is becoming more of a case that thinks he knows the subject, but the essence eludes him.
Yes, I think S&P came to their decision independently. There is a lot of evidence that Geithner and Summers went out of their way to oppose it and assuage S&P. And look! S&P just got decapitated for not towing the party line…
I respect that view though i think its a bit more sinister, i suspect that the “Government-Sachs” is behind this move because the US-congress is no longer independent. you never know if youre talking to the Government or Goldman scahs.
Sounds more like Moore schooled Friedman. Whatever they are both idiots.
I just stated that a number of days ago!!!