Reinko

Risks to U.S. AAA Rating Have Grown

This is a dumb article that contains major faults and mistakes.

The most important is the so called net Federal debt that is 42% of the GDP. You can find that 'net debt' for example in the next link from the FED:

www.federalreserve.gov...

It says: 5822.7 billion in Federal debt.

This is a nonsense figure; lately US Senate and Congress gave a new ceiling above 10 trillion.
Furthermore there is all kinds of hidden debt, for example the Pentagon has a budget in fiscal 2007/2008 of 700 billion;
That is 500 billion in 'real budget' and a small 200 billion in 'supplements' that do not count for the official deficit.

Just another example:
All Federal Funds do not contain money but US Treasuries, for example the Fund of the FDIC is filled with Treasuries. All insurance money laid in by the banks is long gone.
This goes for all Federal Funds, again a few trillion is added to the Federal debt. Think of the Social Security funds for example; no real money in it but only Treasuries...

In reality the 42% is a joke and debt stands far far above other AAA rated nations.

I could go on longer, but at S&P they know their stuff; as long as nobody complains they keep on doing their best for the USA.