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Reuters reports: "The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, in a dramatic reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy." The new rating is AA+. In explaining their decision Standard & Poors cites both the decision by Republicans in Congress to turn the debt ceiling into a political football and the Republicans intransigence on tax increases. Some excerpts from the release:

Beijing (CNN) -- Although the United States narrowly avoided an unprecedented default following congressional approval of a last-minute compromise plan to raise the debt ceiling, China's leading credit rating agency Wednesday downgraded U.S. sovereign debt after putting it on negative watch last month. The Dagong Global Credit Rating Company, which lowered the United States to A+ last November after the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to continue loosening its monetary policy, announced a further downgrade to A, indicating heightened doubts over Washington's long-term ability to repay its debts.

Wall Street Isn't Winning - It's Cheating The two-tiered justice system: an illustration 9/10/2001: Rumsfeld says $2.3 TRILLION Missing from Pentagon  The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality The Quiet Coup "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" What OWS is about + data behind the movement Data privacy is now extinct in the U.S. "The problem that confronts us is that every living system in the biosphere is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating. There isn't one peer-reviewed scientific article that's been published in the last 20 years that contradicts that statement. Living systems are coral reefs. They're our climatic stability, forest cover, the oceans themselves, aquifers, water, the conditions of the soil, biodiversity. They go on and on as they get more specific. But the fact is, there isn't one living system that is stable or is improving. And those living systems provide the basis for all life." The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich: The inside story of how the Republicans abandoned the poor and the middle class to pursue their relentless agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent

Could euro devaluation increase the size of the U.S. deficit? Marshall Auerback explores the possibility, and what it means if deficit hysteria continues unchecked.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig said U.S. regulators should avert another crisis by breaking up large financial institutions that pose a threat "to our capitalistic system." 

Mathew Yglesias: CBPP Analysis of John Boehner's Plan: The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concludes that if enacted, John Boehner's debt ceiling plan "could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history." That sounds to me like something that would create strong incentives to not be poor and, indeed, to fully incentive richness. Consequently, we'll have massive economic growth. Right? Think of all the old people who will be willing to do odd jobs, whatever, in order to pay for health care. No more free-riding from grandma and grandpa to slow the economy down. The CBPP adds: This may sound hyperbolic, but it is not. The mathematics are inexorable. ... In short, the Boehner plan would force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations. As for the way the debt ceiling talks are going, what a disaster.

The conference of the signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is a diplomatic victory for Egypt and a failure for Israel.

S&P rebaja la calificación a AA con perspectiva negativa - La Bolsa se hunde, pero la prima de riesgo resiste - El Gobierno cree que la rebaja tendrá un efecto limitado

S&P dice que la banca, "además de a las débiles perspectivas de la economía, se enfrenta a la excesiva concentración de riesgos en construcción y al sobredimensionamiento" del sector inmobiliario.

The future of the U.S. economic recovery is in the hands of politicians in an assortment of European capitals. If one or more fail to make the expected progress on cutting budgets, restructuring economies or boosting growth, it could drain confidence in a broad and unsettling way. Credit markets worldwide could lock up and throw the global economy back into recession.

Every country has scam artists, but only in a dying country are they part of the power structure.

The White House unveiled a new National Security Strategy that will serve to guide America's approach to the world. It signals a sharp break from the previous administration whose unilateral, reckless, and ideologically-driven policies left America isolated, overstretched, and weaker. This strategy outlines a clear vision that reflects the the last decade of progressive thought; it demonstrates a comprehension of the geopolitical landscape and of the challenges confronting the United States and the world.

Economics: I'm going to discuss trillions of dollars in a moment. As an economics teacher, I understand numbers this large are extremely difficult to imagine. If you are among the majority with this difficulty, I recommend that you follow the expert testimony that paints the picture, and know that success in this area of public education transformation that unleashes trillions of our dollars for human creative capacity in unimaginable power is sufficient to end the current economic crisis. This is the longest section of my briefing. If you tire in reading, please consider that at trillions of dollars of annual public benefits, you literally have nothing more valuable to do than understand the following facts and ideas. Harvard's Linda Bilmes co-authored a paper with Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz estimating the long-term costs of current US wars at now $3 to $5 trillion ($30-$50,000 per US household of $50,000/year income), with total debt increase since 2001 of over $10 trillion. Remember, as demonstrated by the evidence disclosed by our own government, all the reasons Americans were told to go to war were known to be lies as they were told and applicable law proves these wars Orwellian unlawful. Just down the Charles River from Harvard, MIT's Simon Johnson (and former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund) describes our economy being lead by gambling oligarchs who have captured government as in banana republics (his words), and might plunge the US into an economy worse than the Great Depression. From his article under the telling title, The Quiet Coup: "Elite business interests-financiers, in the case of the U.S.-played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The govern

Our  government's perverse definition of "national security" was on  display again this summer. By large majorities, the U.S. Congress  approved a so-called emergency appropriation of $33.5 billion to  escalate the war in Afghanistan-adding to the more than $1 trillion  that the United States has already spent waging wars in Afghanistan  and Iraq.

What's striking about Spain, from an American perspective, is how much its economic story resembles our own. Like America, Spain experienced a huge property bubble, accompanied by a huge rise in private-sector debt. Like America, Spain fell into recession when that bubble burst, and has experienced a surge in unemployment. And like America, Spain has seen its budget deficit balloon thanks to plunging revenues and recession-related costs. But unlike America, Spain is on the edge of a debt crisis. The U.S. government is having no trouble financing its deficit, with interest rates on long-term federal debt under 3 percent. Spain, by contrast, has seen its borrowing cost shoot up in recent weeks, reflecting growing fears of a possible future default. Why is Spain in so much trouble? In a word, it's the euro.

La clasificación según S&P, Moody's y Fitch.

The deal widens a divide between a group of countries led by the U.S., on the one hand, and developing nations on the other, over the right of Iran and other developing nations to use nuclear energy.

The United States reached agreement Tuesday with Russia, China and other major powers on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would modestly expand and stiffen sanctions on Iran for its failure to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

China and India stand to lose a lot from reducing their trade with Iran, so the Americans will find it difficult to preserve these giants' commitment to sanctions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner dined on Wednesday night with European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, a closed-door, no-public-comment session that placed the American official in the middle of an ongoing European debate: Which Trichet would show up?