downgrade

S&P replaces president with Citibank exec after U.S. downgrade

by

(Reuters) – The chief of Standard & Poor’s will step down next month, to be replaced by a senior Citibank executive, in a move announced a few weeks after the credit rating agency downgraded U.S. government debt and sparked a row with Washington. S&P’s parent, McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, said on Tuesday that Deven Sharma, who has served as S&P president since 2007, would step down on September 12, to be succeeded by Citibank chief operating officer Douglas Peterson. “S&P will continue to produce ratings that are comparable, forward looking and transparent,” McGraw-Hill said in a statement, adding that Sharma would … Read more

Geithner Rips S&” Move on Downgrade

by

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ripped Standard & Poor’s two days after the ratings agency downgraded US debt, saying the stunning move was based on a “lack of knowledge” about the nation’s finances. Geithner also said the debt crisis presents Congress with a chance to “earn back confidence of investors around the world” and he reiterated his support for President Obama, who asked Geithner to stay on even as calls intensified over the weekend for his resignation. “S&P has shown really terrible judgment and they’ve handled themselves very poorly,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNBC. “And they’ve shown a … Read more

El-Erian Says S&P Will Downgrade U.S. If It Holds to Outlook

by

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) — Standard & Poor’s will downgrade the U.S. after it enacted a law to reduce federal debt by $2.4 trillion over a decade if the credit-rating company sticks to what it outlined last month, said Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Mohamed El-Erian. “It’s not clear that this is enough to preclude a downgrade by S&P,” El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at the world’s biggest manager of bond funds, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” with Betty Liu. “We suspect they’re under tremendous pressure not to downgrade, but if they stick to what … Read more

S&’s yell ,”shark!”, and everyone runs into the water instead of out of it

by

These days the headlines ‘calamity’, the ‘disaster”, ‘financial Armageddon’, and the”Titanic sinking” are used to describe what will happen if Congress refuses to pass the debt ceiling authorization in a timely manner.   If the U.S. government defaults on its sovereign debt obligations and other payment obligations, there will be an immediate downgrade of our trillions of dollars of debt to something less than AAA.  This will cause enormous upheaval and increased interest costs, thus exacerbating the already enormous burden of debt the country shoulders.  These events could lead to an uncertain chain reaction of cascading financial upheavals around the world; … Read more