How Do You Rate A Country?

[JBeukema]

It's easy enough to imagine how an agency like Standard & Poor's rates a company: Look at the books and try to estimate the chances that the company will pay back the money it's borrowing.
But how does S&P rate a country?
It's not an idle question — just ask Greece, Spain or Portugal, all of which have been downgraded by big ratings agencies recently as Europe's debt crisis intensified.

How Do You Rate A Country? : NPR

 

[rightwinger]

I rate them based on how good looking their women are....

Greek women aren't that bad

 

[Mr Natural]

I rate them based on how good looking their women are....

Greek women aren't that bad

A bit on the hairy side but not too bad if you don't mind mustaches.

 

[AVG-JOE]

I rate them based on how good looking their women are....

Greek women aren't that bad

"HairyDivas-of-the-Mediterranean.com"

Proving once again that here in America, one mans treasure is another mans 'ewwwww'​

 

[rightwinger]

 

[AVG-JOE]

Seriously though... Do you reckon America will one day feel obligated to offer the Chinese a ?

I don't see to many ways for us to actually pay them back... at least not without seriously de-valuing the $$ we pay them back with.

 

[editec]

Can you pay your debt fully and on time? What's your ability and willingness to do so?"

Seems fairly obvious to me.

Of course the devil is in the details.

If you cannot know how much the bonds you've issued are worth because the market price of real estate is unknowable, and you cannot know what the future revenues the government can generate because the fiture economy is unknowable, then that simple answer is somewhat misleading, isn't it?

Let us recall shall we, that Moodys and Standard and Poor COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED the real risk involved in bonds.

These guys don't KNOW much, folks. They mostly take educated guesses, and those are only as good as the data they're working with.

That ought to be OBVIOUS by now.