Another First: US Debt Downgraded to AA+ -- Not a Bakken Story

I am currently on the road, driving through the heartland of America. The scenery is beautiful. The farms and farmland are awesome. The roads are in great shape. The cars are all late models. The truck traffic is great -- one of my favorite things in life is to drive among heavy truck traffic. Maybe a stand-alone post on that some day, on one of my other blogs.

Great trucking song -- not the Bakken, and not even in the US, but great memories:


Lights on the Hill, Slim Dusty

But I digress. The heartland of America is as close to paradise one get here on earth, I assume.

It's hard to believe the federal government can screw it up so badly, what our founding fathers envisioned. Tim said the US government would not lose its top credit rating, but then again, he had trouble filling out his tax forms.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the nation's rating for the first time since the U.S. won the top ranking in 1917.

By the way, I saw a cute sign along the road today: "THE IRS. Remove the space."

Note: even the AP can spin this just a bit. It's subtle, but it's there. The AP said "... for the first time since ... 1917."  Yes, there were some words in between but if you read it fast, or if you fail to pay attention, it sounds like the credit rating has been degraded before, and that the last time was 1917. Yes, it's subtle but it's there.

An easy-to-read tabloid would have broken that into two sentences: "For the first time in the history of the US, the nation's credit rating has been lowered." The second sentence, stating the date, later on in the article when additional background was being given.

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