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.
標準普爾(Standard & Poor’s)對山姆大叔的債務感到不安了。應該有人在乎嗎?即使沒有美國結構性債務大崩潰期間關於信用評級機構表現的那些玩笑,答案顯然也應該是否定的。他們只提供了一種觀點,而基於公開數據,他們在兩年內採取真實行動的機率只有三分之一。考慮到美國公共部門赤字的規模,幾乎沒人會反駁一點,那就是評級機構可能很快就不得不開始下調美國的信用評級。