US loses AAA credit rating after S&P downgrade

[Thickbeard]

One of the top credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, has downgraded the United States' top-notch AAA rating for the first time ever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14428930

[ClydeR]

It's called treason -- the only crime for which the Constitution says you punish both the criminal and the criminal's children.

[AnticorRifling]

Kind of like building penis ponds.

[ClydeR]

It's called treason -- the only crime for which the Constitution says you punish both the criminal and the criminal's children.

It's payback time..


The Justice Department filed civil fraud charges late on Monday against the nation’s largest credit-ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, accusing the firm of inflating the ratings of mortgage investments and setting them up for a crash when the financial crisis struck.

More... (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/u-s-and-states-prepare-to-sue-s-p-over-mortgage-ratings/)

[Showal]

Kind of like building penis ponds.

It's penis pond time.

[ClydeR]

Looks like I was exactly right, as usual.


Two years ago today, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States, from AAA to a mere AA+. It was a psychological gut-punch, coming on the heels of a divisive standoff over raising the federal debt ceiling in which some Republican members of Congress threatened to allow the nation to tumble into default.

It also looks, with the benefit of hindsight, like the wrong call. Yes, the U.S. government might be dysfunctional. But over the past two years, prices in bond markets look like a wholesale rejection of the S&P thesis.

You would expect that if U.S. government debt was truly more risky than that of AAA rated nations, that the treasury would have to pay higher interest rates. But the verdict of the market these last two years cuts in the opposite direction.

More... (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/05/sp-screwed-up-when-it-downgraded-u-s-credit-2-years-ago-heres-proof/)

[ClydeR]

Meanwhile back at the ranch..


Five years after inflated credit ratings helped touch off the financial crisis, the country’s largest ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, is winning business again by offering more favorable ratings.

S&P has been giving higher ratings than its big rivals to certain mortgage-backed securities just as Wall Street is eagerly trying to revive the market for these investments, according to an analysis conducted for The New York Times by Commercial Mortgage Alert, which collects data on the industry. S&P’s chase for business is notable because it is fighting a government lawsuit accusing it of similar action before the financial crisis.

As the company battles those accusations, industry participants say the agency has once again been moving to capture business by offering Wall Street underwriters higher ratings than its rivals will offer. And it apparently has worked. Banks have shown a new willingness to hire S&P to rate their bonds, tripling its market share in the first half of 2013. Its biggest rivals have been much less-likely to give higher ratings.

More... (http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2013/08/04/sp-back-to-inflating-ratings-data-show.html)

[Gelston]

Meh, I saw 8-5 at the top before noticing the 2011 and thought to myself... Again?

[DoctorUnne]

MHFI is a great stock to own. S&P will be fine

[ClydeR]

Standard & Poor's will pay more than $58 million to settle charges of fraudulent misconduct in rating mortgage bonds, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday.

S&P will also pay $19 million to settle cases filed by attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts.

The SEC case relates to the ratings on certain commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS.

More... (http://www.cnbc.com/id/102329979)

Just as I predicted.

[JackWhisper]

Looks like I was exactly right, as usual.


Just as I predicted.

Good god, people are right. You're Latrinsorm. Because one man cannot be so right all on his own.

You must be a closet Mayan. Scared anyone will ever reveal your shameful heritage.

[DoctorUnne]

MHFI is a great stock to own. S&P will be fine

Just as I predicted. Since I posted stock has been up 52% vs. the S&P up 23%.