What the U.S. Credit Rating Actually Means—And How to Fix It

After an afternoon of contentious wrangling over the numbers, Standard & Poor's, the global bond rating agency, declared Friday for the first time since 1917—when the company issued its very first rating—that U.S. government debt is no longer the good-as-cash investment it has always been. The agency knocked the rating down a notch from AAA to AA+. This is bad news, but specific repercussions