In the know: America's credit score

Aghast, the morale of the country has taken another devastating plunge. Standard and Poor’s, a financial service company, drastically lowered the United States’ credit rating from a AAA to a AA . With news of this horror spreading around the world, the stock market was completely obliterated during opening bell on Monday, and has spent the entire week trying to resurrect itself. It seems so arbitrary; one company’s opinion of our country’s credit can have such a damaging effect. After all, the two other major financial services companies have kept the U.S. at a AAA rating. But what’s even more surprising is the panic this single company’s rating can invoke worldwide. We have allowed our lives to be dictated by a company’s rating, which in reality means absolutely nothing. The more faith we give to the economy, the stronger it becomes, and the more we doubt it, the harder it falls. So instead of insisting this credit downgrade is the apocalypse, we should all try and have a little faith in the economy. After all, we did create it, and we alone can rebuild it.

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