The USA is ranked Double A, the second highest.

Ireland is ranked Junk.

Ireland is still in a much worse situation.

Deficit increasing by 100 billion or so.

POSSIBLY needing to pay more on their own bonds depending how the market reacts.

Which, I've been waiting for bond rates to go up myself, Europe being more messed up  then the USA has actually kept US bond rates pretty low.

a credit rating is just an evalutation of one's credit worthiness and risk of default.  It's the same priciple as individual credit ratings for you and I.  AAA is the highest credit rating, meaning that countries with it are seen as very safe to lend money too.  These countries can offer lower interest rates for the money they are borrowing as it is seen as next to impossible for them to default on their debts.

So the fact that the US has been downgraded and lost it's AAA rating, reflects that they are no longer seen by the agency as being in the top tier in terms of safety of debt repayment.  Therefore, the US government will almost certainly have to pay higher interest on the money it is borrowing.  This is turn means that when the time comes to repay such debts, more will have to be repayed.

I guess they really wanted to bring shame when the named it that huh

Well it's not the official name... I just don't remember which Junk rating it is.

There are two types of ratings.  Investment which is AAA through BBB, and Junk bonds which are everything below Triple B.

The difference being, anything in the Investment range are in little to no fear of default, while Junk bonds are a crap shoot.

Ok thanks for explaining that to me.

China isn't pleased. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/us-eurozone-idUSTRE7712HB20110806

I wonder just how much they'll restrict their lending to the US from now on.

148 trillion in debt says hi. How is ireland in a much worse situation?

Well I'm glad Canada has a triple A diamond ratingg

Ireland makes much less money.

I mean, who is a bigger credit risk, Bill gates owing a million dollars to someone, or your average grocery store employee owing 3 thousand dollars to someone.