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May 09, 2010 at 08:00 PM
Martin Weiss is calling on the big rating agencies to downgrade the long-term sovereign debt of the United States.
Weiss, chairman of Weiss Group L.L.C., Jupiter, Fla., announced last week that he has repurchased the independent bank and insurance rating business he founded in 1971 from TheStreet.com Inc., New York.
Weiss has followed up this week by contending that the big, national recognized statistical rating organizations are going easy on the U.S. government.
“The U.S. government’s triple-A rating is an anachronism,” Weiss says in a letter to the rating agencies. “Given the rapid deterioration in our nation’s finances and the spreading threat to sovereign debt overseas, the downgrade is long overdue.”
The AAA rating of the U.S. government entices savers to take on risk they do not understand that they are taking, or to be underpaid for risks that they do know they are taking, Weiss says.
