"Why didn’t the stock market go up?"

"Cheap Talk" on the apparent paradox of Treasury bonds becoming more sought after as a secure investment in the wake of their "downgrade" by the "geniuses" at S&P:

You might have thought it obvious that the stock market would go down after S&P downgraded US government debt. The bad news about US debt made investors worry, and worried investors are usually less enthusiastic about holding stocks.

But there is something wrong with this view.

Stewart pretty much says it all on "downgrade"

The GOP is bad for business

The GOP: flying on a wing-nut and a prayer.

James Suroweicki, at The New Yorker, argues that the country would be much better off if the Republicans abandoned the political hostage-taking and the Tea Party "crazy train" - and went back to the more respectable and risk-averse  business of simply being corporate lapdogs:

Moody's Mood

That other "big three" ratings agency - which for the record, was just as complicit as the execrable Standard & Poors in aiding and abetting the junk mortgage markets that triggered financial crisis -  has affirmed that the United States has “unmatched access to financing, meaning that the U.S. government can support higher debt levels than other governments” and rates the country "AAA."

Excerpts of the basis of their "AAA" assessment, via New York Times "Economix":