Monday, December 23, 2013

EU downgrade - who will be left at AAA?

S&P has downgraded the EU to AA+ from AAA. The EU does not have much debt outstanding, but it is hard to think of  an organization that is dependent on 28 countries most of who do not have AAA ratings as AAA-rated. You cannot make the EU as a entity issuing debt more creditworthy than the back stop provided by member countries. This should have happened during the sovereign crisis, so no one should argue that S&P made a wrong call. The only argument is that S&P should have done this two years ago. 

We are running out of AAA-rated countries. Of course, the world may not change dramatically if we do not have any AAA-rated. The "safe" assets will be the ones most highly rated. The US has not suffered from downgrade. The same may apply to the EU.  

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