Why Blame S&P?

The president of United States, Mr. Warren Buffett and the analyst on the wall street; many are blaming S&P for downgrading the US ratings. I have the highest respect for the world's greatest investor.. Eu to Buffett?

In stead of congratulating S&P for doing a good job and being honest (even at the potential of getting this wrath from various angles) its a pity that we are blaming S&P. They say S&P is evaluating America politically and S&P is not a political judge. How can you evaluate a country without looking at its political stability? Not only has S&P judged it politically, they have got it perfectly right. With the democrats not willing to give up on healthcare expenditure and the republicans not willing to budge on taxes, the fact is US is a debt ridden economy and will remain so for the near foreseeable future!

Some are even asking what was S&P doing four years ago when it gave the highest ratings to asset backed securities (that ended up nasty with the beginning of Lehman going belly up) and hence doubting their analysis. That's the point, S&P has learnt its mistake while a few others including the spendthrift US government has not. I haven't heard a more lame excuse than "we can print more money so we will not default". What about the eventual devaluation of the US dollar and its effect on buying power for Americans? What about the devaluation of billions of dollars of US securities held by other governments?

Obama saying "US will always be a triple A country" is optimism misplaced at the highest. The spiralling US government debt is indeed worrisome. The US government's last week's decision to raise the debt ceiling is only expected to postpone the bad news and not put it off for good. The world did not see a concrete plan to put away the larger danger.

The easiest way out is to say don't give too much importance to rating agencies. If the president of United States himself had not mentioned and made such a big deal of the US ratings downgrade, nobody else would have.

Either believe in the S&P ratings and do something about it or don't believe it and don't talk about it!