There are three major credit rating agencies that score the
investment quality of stocks and bonds, one of the best known being Standard
& Poor’s (S&P). This week S&P
downgraded United States
bonds from AAA (“Triple-A”) to AA+. Both
are strong, investment-grade ratings. Both AAA and AA+ would be considered safe long-term investments. If you’ve been watching the news lately you
can only begin to guess which of the US’s laundry list of troubles
sparked the recent downgrade. If
anything, you might wonder, “Why now?”
The housing bubble officially burst around 2007. The US government bailed out numerous
financial institutions in the past few years.