Countries with a AAA Credit Rating

Opposite of Venezuela or Greece. Creditworthy on the national government level.

Yes but still very funny comment

He who laughs last laughs longest.

The downgrading of America by S&P was not due to America's inability to pay or even it's national debt. It was due to the political possibility that Congress wouldn't pass a budget that paid for debts that Congress had already approved.

Right. They were AAA up until Republicans in Congress started shutting down the government or refusing the raise the debt ceiling whenever they didn't get everything they wanted all the time. Paying the tab for expenses already incurred did not use to be something controversial in the US. This is even more stupid than it appears at first blush when you consider the fact that, by not raising the debt ceiling or failing to approve a budget (purportedly in the name of stopping government waste), they triggered a downgrade in the American credit rating, which raises the interest rates that the country pays on its debt, which could end up costing billions of dollars in increased interest payments (in other words, for absolutely nothing).

If the US Government were to default on its debt, the world economy will be in a shambles; either as a cause of or as a result of that default. Either way, it's terrible, terrible news with enormous ripple effects we do not want or need to explore. The US Government obligation yield curve forms the base benchmark rates essentially for all other borrowing. The investors in these bonds is basically every American and nearly every other person in even moderately developed economies abroad. These investors have obligations that must be met - and a default in US government bonds would basically freeze debt issuance (and economies) everywhere else. The 2011 downgrade by S&P occurred when lawmakers were playing chicken on raising the debt ceiling - a necessary step at that time to roll over maturing debt and fund a deficit. A technical default would have resulted if the law hadn't passed. The result at that time might not have been cataclysmic but it is very thin ice regardless.

^ baloney. When Congress unanimously agrees on a spending bill (something that in the past was never controversial and presidents would always sign as a matter of procedure and of course), and then the Republican president refuses to sign it because the spending bill does not include funding for his moronic pet project that no serious person wants and he promised Mexico would pay for anyway, and the Republican president goes on TV to announce that he's going to proudly shut down the government to try and force Congress to give him his stupid ego project, and Republican Mitch McConnell in the Senate then refuses to allow a vote on the budget, even though it would definitely pass, because the president asked him not to bring it to a vote, and then after a month of having the government shut down they easily pass through a spending bill which contains even less funding for border barriers than it did originally and the president signs it because the shut down his party started didn't work

... that is not a bipartisan shut down.

The 2011 debt ceiling crisis was also entirely the Republican's fault. Before, raising the debt ceiling was always a matter of course, just like presidents signing budgets that had been unanimously passed through Congress was always a matter of course. But Congressional GOP members decided it wise to try and hold the government hostage, refusing to pay for things that had already been voted on and passed. They claimed it was because they were concerned about deficit spending and were demanding cuts to certain programs they didn't like, but, as pointed out above, this was beyond stupid as this pointless brinkmanship ended up raising the interest rate the US was paying, costing them way more.

Democrats have used the debt ceiling in the past for political maneuvering, but they were never dumb enough to let it go so far that it resulted in a credit downgrade for the country that we'd be paying for for decades.

Canadian here with no idea what you are all talking about.

If you borrow money from a Liechtensteiner you don't have to pay it back? Where are the Liechtensteiners I can borrow money from?

Thanks!

I knew that, but somehow didn't consider the "triple A" thing.

lol