Who’s Afraid of Standard & Poor’s?

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It’s not like Paul Krugman needs my help in spreading his opinions, but people really ought to be paying a little more attention to the fact that right after S&P’s warning yesterday morning about U.S. debt, interest rates on U.S. debt…..fell. Why? Because demand for U.S. securities rose and their price went up, as the chart below of a typical treasury index fund shows.

In other words, actual bond traders not only ignored S&P, they decided that U.S. debt was even safer than they thought before. And if S&P’s warning didn’t have any impact on trading in actual treasuries, it almost certainly didn’t have any impact on anything else, including the stock market. As Krugman says, “People, this was a non-event.”

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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