Standard & Poor’s is getting nervous about Uncle Sam’s debt. Should anyone care? Even without jokes about the rating agencies’ performance during the great US structured debt debacle, the answer should plainly be “no”. Theirs is only an opinion, based on public data, with a one-third chance that action will follow within two years. Given the scale of the US’s public sector deficit, few could argue with the idea that rating agencies may soon have to start downgrading.
标准普尔(Standard & Poor’s)对山姆大叔的债务感到不安了。应该有人在乎吗?即使没有美国结构性债务大崩溃期间关于信用评级机构表现的那些玩笑,答案显然也应该是否定的。他们只提供了一种观点,而基于公开数据,他们在两年内采取真实行动的概率只有三分之一。考虑到美国公共部门赤字的规模,几乎没人会反驳一点,那就是评级机构可能很快就不得不开始下调美国的信用评级。