Commentary: It's time for U.S. to stop blames, take responsibility

(Xinhua)

10:39, August 08, 2011

The White House on Saturday challenged the ruling by Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. long- term credit rating form top rank of AAA to AA+, citing the agency' s decision relied on faulty math and in haste.

Disappointingly, instead of reflecting on themselves and sitting down to fix problems in a cooperated way, the Democrats and Republicans in Washington are questioning the creditability of the downgrade ruling and blaming each other for the ever-first shame of slipping out top credit rating club.

During the angry finger-pointing, the U.S. politicians seemed to have forgotten Wall Street's severest losses in almost three years last week, forgotten mounting concerns about double-dip recession, and forgotten the criticism over their irresponsibility showed during the debt arm-twisting from all over the world.

The world has seen enough useless bipartisan debate. The bond- holders are losing confidence. The investors have started to escape markets to stay in cash, showing their fears of uncertainty.

S&P managing director John Chambers said "The political gridlock in Washington leads us to conclude that policymakers don' t have the ability to put the public finances of the U.S. on a sustainable footing ".

The alarm has rung. It is time for the naughty boys in Washington to stop chicken games before they cause more damages. It is time for the policy-makers in Washington to settle down, to show some sense of responsibility and fix their fiscal problems.

The United States is not only the biggest debtor, who must pay its large amount of obligations, but also the printer of international reserve currency, which has the responsibility to assure the value of other countries' foreign reserve assets.

If the country's governors kept wrangling for their own interest, ignoring the voices from domestic and aboard, how can their people trust them and where will the confidence for a better economic scenario come from?

If the world's largest debtor kept eating May's grain in April and kept robbing Peter to pay Paul without fiscal discipline, eagerness to balance budget or effective efforts to boost sluggish economy, how can the creditors keep lending without doubts?

According to analysts, risk of dollar devaluation increased after this downgrade, not to speak of the possibility to see more cuts in the next two years with a negative credit rating outlook.

Whether admitted or not, the U.S. central bank tended to maintain a cheap dollar for the export's sake aftermath the financial crisis, which already squeezed world foreign reserves.

Currently, the U.S. is facing a high unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and almost stalled economic growth. But the Federal Reserve's "silver bullets" have run out after two round of quantitative easing. For fiscal stimulus, there is only little room considering the excessive debt and austerity agreement. For the desperate policymakers, to boost export seems to be the last way to kick the U.S. economy. From this point, the U.S. has every motive to maintain a weak dollar.

Before the U.S. makes any move, please remind it: don't forget your responsibility as the issuer of reserve currency to maintain the stable value of the dollar. Don't become blind to the great risks that a fluctuated exchange rate could pose to international financial markets and a weak greenback could pose to the world fragile economic recovery by lifting dollar-denominated commodities prices.

The history is a guide. What we should learn from the financial crisis is to be selfish could only hurt yourself and drag others into water.

It is time for the U.S. to tighten belts and solve structural problems, in order to resume reputation and restore world confidence. 

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