United States Credit Downgraded

 USA Loses AAA Credit Rating

Downgraded to AA+

(Reuters) - The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's Friday in an unprecedented blow to the world's largest economy in the wake of a political battle that took the country to the brink of default. To Read Complete Article click HERE.

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Is City Council Paying Attention?

Who would have ever thought that the United States of America would have it's credit rating downgraded because of the condition of it's financial house? The birthplace of democracy, Greece, and other European countries are also finding themselves in the financial glue these days, and there is one common denominator. They are all simply spending more money than they are collecting and are financing the things they think their citizens want by billing future generations.

Locally, in less than a decade the city of Nanaimo leaders will have borrowed approximately $60 million to fund projects we can not afford to pay for now. At the same time they are increasing taxes, year after year after year as if there is no end to the amount of increase the average taxpayer can bear. This is folly and if those at city hall don't wake up and realize that the laws of economics can't be suspended by them, we will find ourselves in a situation where there will be nothing left in the cookie jar to pay for failing water, sewer and roads.

But we will have a really nice, unused conference centre, a shiny new office for city staff, a pipe line out to Harmac we will never use and a water treatment plant we arguably don't need either.