Note, I am posting this a second time with better search engine optimization. The article below is identical, and it’s where the comments are collecting. –ef
Friday night, Standard & Poor’s announced that it had downgraded the United States’ credit rating. This issue was going back and forth all day between the Department of Treasury and S & P. Treasury found a $2 trillion calculation error, which the rating agency admitted to, but still said it would be lowering the rating. Rachel Maddow just read S & P’s press release on the air, and it’s interesting — posted in the first comment below. S & P has a rotten reputation for endorsing things like junk bonds and the mortgage derivatives that were largely responsible for the recession, as well as for endorsing private debt over public debt.
This is the first time that the United States has ever had its credit rating lowered. The result could be a rise in interest rates on a variety of financial products, a ripple effect through the markets, as well as certain states that are closely tied to the federal government having their credit ratings lowered. For a coherent political analysis, please see the comment by Astrodem, one of our frequent participants.]
The ratings agency, one of three private agencies that rates US the worthiness of US treasury bills, gave a diversity of political reasons for the downgrade, including the inability of Pres. Obama and Congress to work together, which is of course a premeditated situation on the part of certain political strategists. In any event, the statements by the ratings agency (which I have posted in the first comment below) seemed designed to get the attention of the political system. But it’s also an example of a private entity wagging the dog of government. And while they have a point, that point is not that the bond rating was lowered, but what led to it: the conduct of our political leaders.
As for the astrology: centaur planets factor prominently into this chart. Nessus (the third centaur) is rising, right in the region of 20 Aquarius — the midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto square (Gary and I covered this on last week’s special edition podcast). Nessus is a centaur planet, associated with consequences, cycles of karma and psychological and sexual abuse. Melanie Reinhart suggests that a key phrase for Nessus is, “The buck stops here,” appropriate enough in this situation.
Pholus is in the 10th house of this chart. Pholus is about out of control situations and runaway reactions. In the house of government, we have a picture of our feral wealthy elitists who are basically taking advantage of the end of the world by helping propagate it. Pholus is now conjunct several planets not shown — Narcissus (an asteroid), Ixion (out near Pluto, the lord of amorality), and Hylonome (the cry of the poor). These three points are conjunct the Great Attractor, a very powerful point far from our galaxy. [We are looking for other Planet Waves references to the Great Attractor now.] The upshot is that the Great Attractor is magnifying what certainly looks like a toxic brew of minor planets, mainly contaminated by narcissism.
In a sentence, we are indeed witnessing a bonfire of the vanities.
Meanwhile, in the ascendant, Nessus is suggesting that we are facing a moment of consequences, even if those consequences are driven by abusive intentions. Nessus is also aspecting Eris and the lunar nodes, making a slow-moving aspect structure that came into full expression during the shootings in Norway two weeks ago.
The Moon is in Scorpio, and its next aspect is to Jupiter — representing a kind of exaggeration effect. Note the position of Neptune, right in the last arc minute of Aquarius. We are in a throwback to the era of all smoke and all mirrors all the time — but now at least we’re smart enough to see what is what.