Between the Lines: The Standard and Poor’s Rating Downgrade and What It All Means –Source: eurweb

*Within a week of Congress passing its compromise debt-ceiling legislation, and a week after President Obama signed the legislation into to law, raising the debt ceiling a measly $2.4 trillion dollars, the Wall Street markets, and the global markets tied to it, have been in a constant downward trend. Nearly every economist predicted it. (Read more)

Business Unusual – Source: brotherpeacemaker

Late Friday afternoon, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the debt rating of the United States from the absolute top rating of AAA to the next highest rating of AA+.  It’s not like we didn’t know it was coming.  One of the issues that we were facing as a country about to default on its debt for the first time in history was the possibility that our debt rating would be lowered and we would face consequences.  Instead of heeding that warning, our political leaders fought tooth and nail to the wire about how we were going to raise the debt ceiling.  We could have preserved our credit rating. (Read more)