A mighty fall for U.S. economic prestige

By now every­one is aware that the U.S. gov­ern­ment has lost some­thing the coun­try has pos­sessed since 1917 — its “best-of-the-best” stamp of finan­cial approval from all major debt rat­ings agen­cies. Last Fri­day Stan­dard and Poor’s down­graded U.S. Trea­sury secu­ri­ties from AAA to AA+, sug­gest­ing the U.S. gov­ern­ment seems a lit­tle less likely to repay in a timely fash­ion both prin­ci­pal and inter­est on Trea­sury securities.