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Should anything happen to the Obamas' Portugese water dog Bo, perhaps the First Family could adopt Jeff Glor as a pet parrot. The weekend Early Show weekend co-host proved the perfect White House mimic this morning. Glor dutifully echoed the Obama admin line, dismissing as "political" Standard & Poor's downgrade of the US government's credit rating. In support of his point, Glor twice mockingly referred to the fact that the country of Liechtenstein now has a better credit rating than the US. And your point is, Jeff? View video after here.

Standard & Poor's first-ever downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt could lead to some market tumult next week, investors and analysts said Saturday. Over time, though, the downgrade might do little more than mark a moment in the decline of U.S. economic strength, they said. There may be an "adverse market reaction," said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at research firm Capital Economics. But it "won't be long before the markets focus once again on the economic fundamentals," which he described as "not great." Mr. Dales said "the loss of America's AAA rating is the clearest sign yet that the fallout...

America's most trusted investor, Warren Buffett roundly dismissed the S&P downgrade in comments to Fox Business. "I don't get it. In Omaha, the U.S. is still triple A. In fact, if there were a quadruple-A rating, I'd give the U.S. that." Berkshire's exposure to treasuries is significant, but he says he doesn't plan to sell. Buffett sounded no alarm bells about the downgrade, going so far as to say it wouldn't have much effect on the markets Monday. "If nothing else takes place, meaning, if all other variables hold and there isn't say, a new problem in Europe, it won't...

The decision by credit agency Standard and Poor’s to downgrade America’s AAA credit rating for the first time in 70 years is a massive blow to the credibility of the Obama administration, and a damning indictment of its handling of the economy. No doubt the White House will pathetically try to blame the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress, and of course its favourite target, the Tea Party, for the move by S&P. But without a shadow of a doubt, responsibility for the country’s financial mess and staggering levels of debt lie with the current US president and his administration. They...

Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s debt couldn’t come at a worse time. The result is likely to be higher borrowing costs for the government at all levels, and higher interest on your variable-rate mortgage, your auto loan, your credit card loans, and every other penny you borrow. Why did S&P do it? Not because America failed to pay its creditors on time. As you may have noticed, we avoided a default. And not because we might fail to pay our bills at the end of 2012 if tea-party Republicans again hold the nation hostage when their votes will next...

Yesterday, as everyone knows, Standard & Poor’s downgraded US credit one notch to AA+, the first time since 1917 that we have fallen below the top AAA rating. Most people wonder what this will mean for the country and for us as individuals. How will a lower bond rating affect us? ABC has a pretty good five-point explanation, but it tends to assume that the rating drop came out of nowhere. I’ll address them point by point: US debt service costs will rise — From this point forward, we may have to pay higher yields to get people to buy...

As I was watching the "spin" on MSNBC, CNN, and almost every other cable show last night regarding S&Ps decision to downgrade the soverign US credit rating for the first time in our nation's history, it was amazing to me that every liberal commentator and every Democrat appearing on the shows avoided the monster in the room at all costs: ENTITLEMENTS Entitlements are breaking the back of this nation. During the debt deal and its aftermath, Democrats made it clear they would not budge (or even address) the crippling effects of Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. S&P's report did -...

• We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating. • We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative. • The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics. • More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time...

Who do you think is most to blame for the US losing its stellar credit rating? 6.8% Congress 111 votes 18% Obama administration 295 votes 26.4% Republicans 433 votes 4.3% Democrats 71 votes 19.5% Tea party 320 votes 25% All of the above 410 votes

The US Treasury has hit back against a Standard and Poor's downgrade of its AAA credit rating, saying there was a $2 trillion dollar error in the agency's calculations. "A judgment flawed by a 2 trillion dollar error speaks for itself," a Treasury spokesman said, just after the US lost its AAA rating for the first time ever and was downgraded to a AA+. *snip* Moody's and a third ratings agency, Fitch, say they continue to study the deficit plan to see if the US merits being kept in their ranks of AAA countries. Earlier, an official close to the...

Is it silly that I feel so sad over S&P’s downgrade of the US credit rating? Like a lifelong friend who has fallen on hard times, I feel profoundly sad for my country. I literally almost want to cry. I don’t even have the heart to place the blame tonight, but I’m sure it will be back tomorrow. My husband and I have discussed what we will do in a “worst case scenario” of rising interest rates and a falling economy, and I firmly believe that the two of us will be just fine. But it isn’t just about us,...

Why the Tea Party-friendly Republicans of the U.S. House own this epic humiliation On Friday night, after a swirl of rumors and conflicting news reports that will be grist for the Washington pundit mill for years to come, Standards & Poor downgraded the credit rating of the United States.

McGraw-Hill: meet Chicago-style negotiations. And there, in one sentence, is all that is broken with this country. The reason for the beyond ridiculous horse trade, according to CNN: S&P analysis of U.S. revenue, deficit picture was questioned. Presumably S&P ignored to add the $10 quintillion dollars that were saved by America not declaring war on Tatooine and its most infamous Hutt resident: Larry Summers. Indeed, again according to CNN, S&P acknowledged some errors in its analysis. Isn't it amazing what being threatened with having your NRSRO license can do for motivation to double check your work, eh you pathetic sellouts?...

RPT-UPDATE 1-Italy prosecutors seize Moody's, S&P documents Thu Aug 4, 2011 1:13pm EDT (Fixes dateline) * Magistrates probe "anomalous" share price moves * S&P, Moody's defend their work (adds Moody's comment paragraph 6) MILAN, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have seized documents at the offices of rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's in a probe over suspected "anomalous" fluctuations in Italian share prices, a prosecutor said on Thursday. The measure is aimed at "verifying whether these agencies respect regulations as they carry out their work," Carlo Maria Capistro, who heads the prosecutors' office in the southern town of...

And so the war against the rating agencies is now official as a floundering Europe does anything in its power to scapegoat anyone and everyone, starting with its natural sworn enemy of course, the rating agencies. According to Reuters, "Italian prosecutors have seized documents at the offices of credit rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's in a probe over Suspected "anomalous" Fluctuations in Italian share prices, a prosecutor said on Thursday." Ah yes, it is Moody's fault that Unicredit, Intesa, Fiat and pretty much all other Italian companies now close limit down at least once a day. Either way,...

It was only a week ago that S&P said anything under $4 trillion in deficit cuts would be an automatic downgrade for the US. So according to the CBO's just released score of the bipartisan budget, the S&P will have to cut its rating of the US in half, since the total budget cuts will be just over 50% of what S&P demanded previously. And here's the funny part: of the $917 billion in known cuts (the other $1.2 billion is factored but not even the CBO has any clue what it will look like), a whopping 2% in cuts...

FOX News’ Brett Baier, James Rosen and Mike Emanuel caught this interesting disclosure S&P sovereign-rating chief John Chambers made on a conference call today. FOX Business’s Peter Barnes caught this tip, too. The “webinar was held for investors on state and local governments and pension issues,” says an S&P spokesman. Here was the question to S&P exec John Chambers, and his reply: Q: “There's been a figure of $4 trillion dollars circulating as an example of the scope of fiscal consolidation measures that could work to stabilize the U.S. debt-gdp ratios. Could you explain how that figure was arrived at...

The ratings agencies are on firm ground when they warn that the U.S. will lose its “AAA” rating if it doesn’t translate this seriousness into deficit reduction. The threat from Moody’s that it will put a negative outlook on the U.S. rating if the country fails to pass a major fiscal overhaul in the next few months strikes a delicate balance: It signals that the U.S. has one last chance to get its act together — by early 2013. That makes enormous sense, because by then there will no good reason — economic or political — not to make the...

A congressional panel is examining whether the Obama administration tried to unduly influence Standard & Poor's before the credit rater revised its outlook on the debt rating to negative. Randy Neugebauer, the Republican chairman of a House oversight panel, said on Wednesday his staff is probing whether Treasury tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P's news release announcing the negative outlook revision in April. "Our concern was if the administration was trying to influence this rating decision some -- above what would be a normal practice," Neugebauer told reporters after a hearing examining oversight of the credit...

To hear politicians, the fate of modern finance is now being decided by perhaps a dozen Manhattan bond geeks. Their job at Standard & Poor's and Moody's is to paste letter grades on governments so bond buyers can decide which are good for the money. Even America's president fears them. "A six-month extension of the debt ceiling might not be enough to avoid a credit downgrade," he warned the nation in an address Monday night, having already listed some of the consequences: "Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, on mortgages and on car loans." Given that Treasury bonds have...