Crazy Week for Economy and Investors
The beginning of August has brought nothing but turmoil to investors and the economy. Politicians played chicken with the debt ceiling despite the warnings of every single non-politician who knows even a little bit about economics. Although a deal was reached to raise the debt ceiling at the last minute, it was too late. Americans, and the rest of world, are rightly asking can Washington do anything now that it is so polarized into camps of us and them. That uncertainty comes at an inopportune time since there is already so much uncertainty surrounding the current state of the economy. Next came the downgrade of US debt by Standard and Poors. Make no mistake, this was a political, public relations ploy. The original S&P U.S. downgrade played up a very high percentage of debt to GDP, and even gave a number at which things would be "good enough" for the United States debt to not get a downgrade. However, when a math error that was big enough to move the number well into "good enough" territory was discovered, S&P downgraded U.S. bonds anyway, making many wonder what S&P bond ratings are even based on. The company may have damaged its …