The Aug. 17 edition of The Forecaster had four letters to the editor, three being anti-Edgar Allen Beem. Most letters about him disagree with him, some vehemently; the more conservative the writers the more vehement they are. I assume liberal readers probably agree with most of what he writes, but they seem to rarely write to say so. His column, “Blame it on the poor, Standard & Poor’s that is,” is the very first one I’ve read that recalled that S&P, which recently downgraded the U.S. credit rating, apparently a first-ever event, was the same S&P that gave all those fatal mortgage-based investments its highest AAA rating – investments that soon blew up and caused the banks to have to beg the government to bail them out.

Neither The New York Times nor the Washington Post’s reports on S&P’s downgrading mentioned that fact, which amazed me. So where do I read that truth? In a column by a curmudgeonly guy named Beem in the weekly Forecaster from the little town of Falmouth, Maine. Pretty amazing.

J.D. Cowie
Portland


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