I KNOW What the ratings mean, i was just wondering why the hell they thought the need to be AAA, AA+, ect and not A, B, C, ect.  why the soo many A's.

Yes and that is why the US does not deserve an AAA rating. Just compare it to countries like Sweden or Australia, they actually deserve the AAA rating due to lower debt and deficits.

The US does not have any sign of having the political will or public trust to cut its deficit, and the fact that the economy is bad right now makes those fixes even harder to put in front of the population.

That's not true. S&P has a separate rating for short-term debt, the more commonly known debt rating is for long-term bonds (you do know the U.S. government has a 30-year bond, right?).

I think the reasons why people are still swarming to US bonds are:

- expectation of a crappy economy for the next two years or longer (which is why the U.S. Federal reserve yesterday promised low interest rates for two more years). This gets money out of the stock market into bonds.

- the fact that the U.S. bond market is so big. The bond market of other countries is not big enough to absorb all the cash people want to put into bonds.

And the United States is a household that won't die for many years, whose income is currently down by a significant amount, is temporarily paying it's neighbors out (who are out of jobs), and is able to borrow at near zero interest rates.

The household had a longterm problem, but definetly not a "crisis" and definetly solveable.

Unfortunately mom and dad of the household had a huge debate about whether or not it should borrow money due to it not getting it's paycheck for another month. Meanwhile, uncle was saying that the household shouldn't even pay its bills at all.

And after seeing how the household had to go through so much shit, just to decide to pay its bills, people started feeling like the house might not be trustworthy of paying its bills. Although meanwhile, all the other houses are starting to catch on fire, so everyone wants to put their money into said household for virtually no real interest.

Many of the kids in the house don't trust their parents, are spoiled and will probably set the house on fire if the parents try to fix the spending problems and stop giving them the best toys.

It's also a house which is so big that, if it tries to solve its income/debt problem it will create a feedback loop where the economy around it suffers, generating less income, etc... It's not all benefits to being the biggest guy around.

The fact that the other houses are "on fire" also doesn't bode well for the prospect of increasing its income...

That I don't know. They have many different rates (over 20), I guess it's easier to realise how high a bond is rated using this system.

Actually there's only a few spoiled kids, that don't want to do any chores whatsoever. Meanwhile, when the parents try to lower their bills to the doctors, a group of kids cried "Death Panels", while a few days later suggested that they shoud just scrap going to the doctor entirely.

It's a house that doesn't need to cut it's spending right now. Rather, it needs to borrow some money so that they can rent a car and get a job, so that they can actually get some income going in again.

And the other houses have their own problems that they need to fucking fix too. Unfortunately, all the parents in all the houses seem to have their heads up their asses, while the libertarians hobos chant "Gold! Gold! Gold!" outside.

Yeah, just borrow some more money, the Keynesians say. When borrowing loads of money for 2 years is not enough, you haven't borrowed enough, prosperity is just a little more borrowing away...

How did that strategy work out for Greece, Portugal, Ireland etc.?

How is it different? The deficits are similar, the debts are similar. What makes the USA special in its ability to solve its problems by borrowing indefinitely?

Japan is the country I know of that managed to go much above 100% debt-to-GDP without yet blowing up, and that's mostly due to high personal savings and the fact that it's an exporting nation... and even in the case of Japan, more and more borrowing did not grow its economy (lost decade, or is it two decades now?).

Fiscal policy, yes they can. Control the money supply / interest rates not as much as the US, but the US has been doing that for years, and so far there's no indication at all that the economy will grow due to the borrowing. Being able to control those things gives the US gov more wiggle room, but fundamentally it doesn't make any difference with regards to borrowing one's way out of the hole.

Japan could control all those things you mentioned and their economy has been in a slump for more than a decade. Borrowing didn't help them grow their economy, even though they borrowed and spent a lot more than any other developed country. Other countries have tried running large deficits and they ended up defaulting, not making economic miracles...

Again, what is the basis to say the US government will borrow its way to prosperity as Akvod was defending?