The day after the infamous downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor's, I had lunch with a long-time friend who has taught me much about the markets. I noted I was annoyed by what the agencyhad done and said people should dump McGraw Hill stock. She was more sanguine and said that S&P probably wanted to show some independence after the financial crisis of 2008 and its part in it. My response: Helluva time to show some spine.And bad spine at that. As I read the S&P report and its sovereign committee's reasoning behind it - in summary, Washington is broken - I admit to agreeing with some of the points. But as others have said, it should be the numbers, not the politics, that S&P is judging. Further, when a credit agency has been as much debased as S&P, its decision, to quote CME Chairman Terry Duffy, was "a joke."
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