by Stephen L. Bernard
Wall Street Journal
June 14, 2011
Though their overall economic situations are vastly different, both the U.S. and Greece could be looking at near-term defaults on their national debt.
Greece is staring down a debt restructuring to help reduce its payments over the next few months because banks and investors are no longer willing to lend the country money. Then there’s the U.S. — plenty of folks are willing to lend it money, but the country won’t be allowed to accept it come early August unless it raises its debt ceiling.
If the countries don’t make significant positive progress and they end up missing a payment or restructuring outstanding debt, ratings agencies could rule that they are in default. Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s rating Monday to CCC, the lowest rating it has on any of the 100+ countries it measures. Moody’s Investors Service is among the rating agencies to recently warn that it could review the U.S. for possible downgrade if it doesn’t race the debt ceiling.
So, which country is better off? It doesn’t look like much of a contest.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment