I need your help (this is Ken).

My Jesuit training... to calmly evaluate all the facts before making a decision... has me tied up in knots on this issue.

YES...I totally agree with Daria who blogged just a few days ago that the S&P downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating served as a HUGE red flag warning that we have to become more fiscally responsible FAST!

Agreed... agreed.

However... on the other hand... should a privately-owned, for-profit company have special, legally sanctioned status, as a quasi-regulatory authority, to pass judgement on financial institutions' and countries' credit status without accountability?

S&P's epically-flawed credit ratings during the last financial meltdown as it greased the skids by giving AAA ratings to tranche after tranche of junk mortgage bonds certainly does not add to their credibility.

Yet, in spite of past flaws, its credit downgrade of the U.S., as well as, possibly, other countries, has created mayhem in the world financial markets.

Dan Henninger, in a recent Wall Street Journal Editorial article says, basically, stop beating up on S&P.

"The S&P downgrade is nothing more  than bloodless analysts looking at the grim math reality of this country's  long-term social commitments and its ability to pay for them."

To disagree...Warren Buffet says that the U.S. credit should be rated "quadruple-A" and that "it is incredible" that S&P would think that th U.S. was less creditworthy now than it was two weeks ago before a debt ceiling deal was completed.

Could this be a little "sour grapes" by Mr. Buffett in light of the fact that HIS company was downgraded last week?

I'm stuck between trying to decide if the downgrade was a valid red flag emergency call to action for a Congress that let the banking industry run amok, bailed it out with trillions of dollars of credit and has done little to prevent similar occurrences in the future...

OR...a private company over-reacting...exercising moral authority in addition to financial authority... as a mea culpa for past monumental, costly mistakes?

Could it be a little of EACH?

I would be very interested in your "vote" in this matter.

It will surely help me make a final decision.

My Jesuit friends will be SO proud!