Rumor: S&P to Downgrade US Debt After Markets Close Today

[tritsofme]

http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2011/08/05/why-sp-wont-downgrade-the-u-s-after-fridays-close/

Hopefully untrue. Otherwise we could be in for a real ride next week.

[kenny blankenship]

1. Phase II of the Coup.

Now do you wish you had investigated and prosecuted them, Mr. Obama?

[Exultant Democracy]

2. So the debt deal didn't save us... probably because it was crazy irresponsible

I make me sick when I hear the people in Washington talking about making the hard adult choices when they made the easy and wrong ones.

[Javaman]

5. the debt deal was never meant to save us...

if it were, it would have had revenue in it.

I sincerely hope this is an ugly rumor, because if it is true, you think the market yesterday and today are bad? Wait till monday, then watch the value of the dollar plunge.

we live in some truly screwed up times.

[elleng]

3. Could live without such headline. Try this, same story.

Why S&P Won’t Downgrade The U.S. After Friday’s Close

FYI, market up-tick at the moment:

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/overview/overview.asp

[emulatorloo]

9. thnks n/t

[snappyturtle]

4. Are we surprised? If it comes to be I'll blame the teabaggers for

taking us to the rim of economic dispair and further exposing the world to the blathering idiots running the government. The debt ceiling vote could have been easily handled as it had been for decades....yes,I know I'm talking to the choir.

[Goldstein1984]

6. We're completely divested of stocks, so bring it on

Wall Street is basically an organized crime syndicate that has government in its pocket. Our financial investments are largely a bet that the Wall Street based economy is going to collapse.

[99 Percent Sure]

12. "A man with a briefcase can steal more money"

than any man with a gun."

"You cross a lawyer with the godfather, baby, make you an offer that you can't understand." --Don Henley, Gimme What You Got

[Waiting For Everyman]

14. I don't have one cent on Wall Street either - I consider their profits blood money.

I'd rather be poorer, than partners with that lot. I've been out of the market since 1982.

[mmonk]

7. A purely ideological move at this point.

I had wondered about whether to stay and fight or move. The more this shit happens, the more I lean to the latter.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. The same source, Steve Schaefer af Forbes, reported the REAFFIRMATION of

the AAA credit rating two days ago, by another of the Big 3 ratings agencies, Fitch. This story was not about a rumor, it quotes an official opinion letter from Fitch Ratingsm dated August 2nd. Besides, wouldn't the Dow be down by more than the current 42 points were this rumor widely believed?

See http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2011/08/02/fitch-says-u-s-debt-deal-commensurate-with-aaa-rating/ .

[elleng]

10. Yes, and the Dow is up at the moment.,

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/overview/overview.asp

[Poll_Blind]

11. Ah! SHIT. So there must be some in the markets who believe interest rates will be going up.

PB

[QC]

13. Moody's and S&P should have been investigated and punished after the crash

for their role in it.

Then they would not be around to blackmail us today.

This is what we get for all this look forward bullshit.

[truebrit71]

15. BINGO!!! If it weren't for these crooked bastards okay all of that bullshit fake debt as 'AAA'...

..in the first place, we might not have had such a huge mess to clean up...

No-one saw a conflict of interest with a ratings agemncy being paid based on the number and quality of the ratings they were giving out? How fucking blind was that??!!!

If they downgrade the US debt I think the Fed should shut them down on Monday.

[QC]

17. Exactly. Without the crooked ratings agencies, there would have been no crisis.

We will pay a very heavy price in the future for this administration's decision to "look forward" rather than bring these criminals to justice.

[kenny blankenship]

18. It is basically the same conflict of interest pointed re: ratings co.s in the wake the S&L bailout

Back then it was pointed out that the CRAs were paid by the S&Ls to audit their books, and that their findings of "soundness" had official govt imprimatur, and were relied upon by shareholders, FSLIC and depositors in lieu of properly funded public audits. The problem was that the ratings agencies were looking the other way while the S&Ls were engaged in redblooded pillage and financial banditry. They looked the other way, because they were in effect paid to give clean reports. And if a ratings agency had refused to give passing grades to an S&L outlaw, that outlaw could simply dump the report quietly into the trash and shop for a agency that would approve their cooked books.

It wasn't just that "there were a few bad apples" running the S&Ls, or a few bad auditors" pretending not to see fraud at the Ratings Agencies. The mechanism of the marketplace itself virtually guaranteed the auditing/oversight process would be corrupted and corrupted from wall to wall. Yet even after that scandal and its post-mortems, we continued to rely on this "market mechanism" which failed so spectacularly and utterly. And we show no sign of changing anything.

[daa]

16. Why S&P Won’t Downgrade The U.S. After Friday’s Close

"Friday “is not the day to put on a career-threatening long bet,” he continues, but a small long bet on risk could be a huge winner."

http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2011/08/05/why-sp-wont-downgrade-the-u-s-after-fridays-close/