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From Tyler Durden: Back in 2011, Standard & Poors’ shocked the world, and the Obama administration, when it dared to downgrade the US from its vaunted AAA rating, something that had never happened before (and led to the resignation of S&P’s CEO and a dramatic crackdown on the rating agency led by Tim Geithner). Nearly seven years later, with the US on the verge of another government shutdown and debt ceiling breach (with the agreement reached only after the midnight hour, literally) this time it is Warren Buffett’s own rating agency, Moody’s, which on Friday morning warned Trump that he...

In its latest reminder that China is a (for now) happy holder of some $1.2 trillion in US Treasurys, Chinese credit rating agency Dagong downgraded US sovereign ratings from A- to BBB+ overnight, citing “deficiencies in US political ecology” and tax cuts that “directly reduce the federal government’s sources of debt repayment” weakening the base of the government’s debt repayment. Oh, and just to make sure the message is heard loud and clear, the ratings, which are now level with those of Peru, Colombia and Turkmenistan on the Beijing-based agency’s scale of creditworthiness, have also been put on a negative...

Ratings company Standard & Poor’s upgraded its outlook on the U.S. to “stable” from “negative” on Monday and said “tentative improvements” on the political and economic fronts have bought Washington extra time to grapple with long-term challenges. The move comes almost two years after S&P shook up Washington by becoming the first ratings company to remove the nation’s pristine “AAA” rating due to widespread concerns about soaring debt and deficit levels. But S&P affirmed its “AA+” credit rating on the U.S. on Monday and said the revised outlook to “stable” indicates the likelihood of a near-term downgrade is less than...

Ratings firm Egan-Jones cut its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA-" from "AA," citing its opinion that quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve would hurt the U.S. economy and the country's credit quality. The Fed on Thursday said it would pump $40 billion into the U.S. economy each month until it saw a sustained upturn in the weak jobs market. In its downgrade, the firm said that issuing more currency and depressing interest rates through purchasing mortgage-backed securities does little to raise the U.S.'s real gross domestic product, but reduces the value of the dollar. In turn, this...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Egan-Jones Ratings Co. said Friday it downgraded its U.S. sovereign rating to AA- from AA on concerns that the Fed's new round of quantitative easing, or QE3, will hurt the U.S. economy. The ratings agency said the Fed's plan of buying $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities a month and keeping interest rates near zero does little to raise GDP, reduces the value of the dollar, and raises the price of commodities. "From 2006 to present, the US's debt to GDP rose from 66% to 104% and will probably rise to 110% a year from today under...

Ratings firm Egan-Jones cut its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA-" from "AA," citing its opinion that quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve would hurt the U.S. economy and the country's credit quality. In its downgrade, the firm said that issuing more currency and depressing interest rates through purchasing mortgage-backed securities does little to raise the U.S.'s real gross domestic product, but reduces the value of the dollar. In turn, this increases the cost of commodities, the firm said. In April, Egan-Jones cuts the U.S. credit rating to "AA" from "AA+" with a negative watch, citing a lack...

The United States' credit rating has been downgraded from a AA rating to a AA- rating. Egan-Jones is the rating agency that has made this decision. The lowering of the United States to AA- marks the second time in the Obama Administration that the US has had its credit rating lowered. Mr. Obama is the only President in history to have the United States' credit rating lowered. Now it has happened again. This comes one day after Ben Bernanke announced QE3, or "Quantitative Easing," aimed at lowering unemployment by buying bonds. The trade-off is higher inflation and possibly greater debt.

From Egan Jones: Synopsis: UNITED STATES (GOVT OF) EJR Sen Rating(Curr/Prj) AA-/ N/A Rating Analysis - 9/14/12 EJR CP Rating: A1+ Debt: $15.2B EJR's 1 yr. Default Probability: 1.2% Up, up, and away - the FED's QE3 will stoke the stock market and commodity prices, but in our opinion will hurt the US economy and, by extension, credit quality. Issuing additional currency and depressing interest rates via the purchasing of MBS does little to raise the real GDP of the US, but does reduce the value of the dollar (because of the increase in money supply), and in turn increase...

S&P Sounds Alarm On US, G20 Downgrades Antonia van de Velde, CNBC January 31, 2012 Concerns over the size of United States debt reared their head once again as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that health care costs for a number of highly-rated Group of 20 countries, including the U.S., could hurt growth prospects and harm their sovereign creditworthiness from the middle of this decade. S&P downgraded the United States credit rating for the first time ever in August of last year. "Governments' fiscal burdens will increase significantly over the coming decade, with the highest deterioration in public finances...

The latest note from Nomura's Richard Koo is chock full of insight, which is not surprising since talk of fiscal consolidation, misguided ratings agencies, and balance sheet recessions is his wheelhouse. As he's famously observed before, in such recessions like these, spending cuts actually make deficits worse, and so he's particularly dismayed by the counter-productive actions of S&P. Fiscal stimulus will reduce budget deficit in balance sheet recession. What I find even more interesting is that Japan’s fiscal deficit increased under the Hashimoto administration, which pursued fiscal consolidation, but decreased under the Obuchi and Mori governments, which gave up on...

It took the Obama administration less than a year to reduce the United States from the country with a currency that is considered a safe haven when international storms threaten, to one that is warned by a rating agency that unless it mends its profligate ways it will lose the triple-A credit rating it has had since U.S. government debt was first assessed in 1917. Who would have thought when Barack Obama took the oath of office some eleven months ago that Dubai World, Greece, the UK, and America would attract the attention of the rating agencies in the same...

Stuart Varney was just on Fox and said Moody's will lower the United States bond rating for the first time ever in 2013 with current spending plans.

The US is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody's, the credit rating agency, said yesterday. The warning over the future of the triple-A rating - granted to US government debt since it was first assessed in 1917 - reflects growing concerns over the country's ability to retain its financial and economic supremacy. It could also put further pressure on candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties to sharpen their focus on healthcare and pensions in the run-up to November's...