S&P Downgrades Nine Euro Zone Countries By Matthias Sobolewski and Dina Kyriakidou | Reuters | 1 hr 50 mins ago BERLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro- zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area. "Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone," the U.S.-based ratings agency said in a statement. In a potentially more ominous setback, negotiations on a debt swap by private creditors seen as crucial to avert a Greek default that would rock Europe and the world economy broke up without agreement in Athens, although officials said more talks are likely next week. If Greece cannot persuade banks and insurers to accept voluntary losses on their bond holdings, a second international rescue package for the euro zone's most heavily indebted state will unravel, raising the prospect of bankruptcy in late March, when it has to redeem 14.4 billion euros in maturing debt. S&P cut the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus by two notches and the standings of France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch each. The move puts highly indebted Italy on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status. It put 14 euro-zone states on negative outlook for a possible further downgrade, including France, Austria, and still triple-A-rated Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Germany was the only country to emerge totally unscathed with its triple-A rating and a stable outlook. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, speaking after an emergency meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, played down the impact of Europe's second-biggest economy being downgraded to AA+ for the first time since 1975. The double blow of the S&P news and the stalling of the Greek debt talks came after a brighter start to the year with Spain and Italy beginning their marathon debt rollover at lower borrowing costs this week. Austerity and budget discipline alone were not sufficient to fight the debt crisis and risked becoming self-defeating, the ratings agency said. John Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign rating committee, said preserving that status would require the four remaining AAA-rated guarantors to increase their commitments. That could prove politically unpopular. Voters in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have resisted lending more support to what they consider less prudent euro-zone countries. read full article: http://news.yahoo.com/mass-p-downgrade-greek-debt-impasse-hit-euro-013534484.html ... Germany seems to be the only country that has emerged relatively uninjured by the S&Ps new ratings. Their economy is bustling, exports are up, the country is secure, and their government is stable. The United States needs to see what they are doing to maintain their increasing solvency in a new era of austerity and budget cutting by other countries in an effort to become AAA+ rating again. I suspect that the different agencies within the German government have coalesced and worked as a single unit to bring a united government into play, with a singleness of purpose to ensure a successfully run government. That sounds like a workable plan. Could Germanys increasing success have anything to do with having a female leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel who is a Christian Democrat? I wonder if we would have gone thru all our drama with Hillary Clinton as our leader, who is also a Democrat. She is more of a kick-azz negotiator than our current president and would not have accepted the antics of Congress that have stalemated our country from a full recovery from the republican induced bankruptcy of our country from 2001 thru 2008.
And to think.... Barack Obama wants to follow the lead of big government European socialism, even as we watch the European economy and monetary system collapse.
ace ya beat me to the punch , Europe is beautiful but living there is totally different, everything is high cost
