Chess Move of the Day: the S&P Downgrade

Two of the remarkable characteristics of the Standard and Poor's downgrade of the USA are its completely evidence-free nature and how thoroughly the markets have ignored it. First, S&P makes a two trilion dollar error in its "justification" of the downgrade. When they're called on it, they simply remove any objective evidence from their analysis with a big middle finger aimed right at the US government. Then, as the stock markets open today, the big run into US Government debt begins, lowering the interest rates on new US debt issues.

Why would S&P do this? Well, if you remember the Abu Dhabi/Kings County fraud case, S&P and Moody's argued that they were not, in fact, committing fraud when they rated dog shit as investment grade, but were actually engaging in free speech.

What better way to demonstrate that the ratings you peddle are as worthless as, let's say, a random blogger's angry post than to call out the institution which helped bail out your entire industry with a laughably unjustified and ineffective downgrade? No one's going to listen to you--and they haven't--and you'll get to use it as evidence of the free speech nature of your business in any ongoing litigation.

Fucking 11-dimensional chess players, these guys.