As the true home of competitive eating and a TV show dedicated to something called "competitive facial hair growing", America is inherently a very competitive country. (And if you, too, are American you are doubtless congratulating yourself on anticipating the end of that sentence – congratulations, you just won the sentence completion competition.) It's an instinct that is instilled in childhood: in America, summertime is synonymous with sending one's children away to a brushland in Maine where they will spend the next eight weeks attempting to beat one another in endless daily races in an annual ritual euphemistically called "summer camp." Jeez Louise, this is a country that spawned a Stephen King short story (The Body) and ensuing hugely successful movie (Stand By Me) that was about a bunch of kids racing one another to see a dead child's body. Truly, there is no prize so unappetising that it can't spark that good ol' American competitive spirit.
So Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade America's credit rating from Absolutely Amazing Awesomeness to only Amazing Awesomeness Plus was never going to go down well here, even though many Americans' personal credit ratings are closer to the latter end of the alphabet spectrum. Nonetheless, there is a definite sense of mafia-like fury against S&P, if not from the general public then certainly from the media commentators and politicians, a distinct sound of "You insulta my country? You insulta me!" That Canada has a AAA credit rating – though it, too, knew the shame of an AA rating in its time – provides solace like ammonia soothes a paper cut.
"This has hit the self-esteem of the US," intoned Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, on Sunday. Judging from S&P's increasingly huffy statements, to say nothing of its majestic disregard for a possible misplaced $2 trillion here or there, this was the auditor's intention, as its decision to downgrade was clearly based a lot less on its concern about America's ability to pay back debts and a lot more on its realisation that Washington is run by a bunch of six-year-olds.
"The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policy-making becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed," S&P announced, immediately sparking rumours that the auditor had drunk deep from Rip Van Winkle's liquor cabinet and, having been asleep for the past few months, has since woken up, harrumphing, to send America to sit on the naughty step, possibly twice.
But a pesky $2tn debate aside, to be fair to S&P, certain elements in the American government have acted recently as though a default was nothing more than an amusing wheeze to hurt Obama's re-election chances, like reminding the public that – snigger – his middle name is Hussein. And nor is this attitude relegated to the desperate politicos taking the moral low ground in the belief – mistaken or otherwise – that it will help their careers. On Monday, American magazine Mother Jones posted on its website a video of Tea Partyers in Wisconsin reacting to news that they are blamed for damaging America's credibility and financial standing:
"They are blaming the credit downgrade on the Tea Party movement," shouts Florida talkshow host Andrea Shea King, standing in front of the ever-distinctive Tea Party Express bus.
"Yeah!!!!" cheers the crowd, possibly in the mistaken belief that "blame" means "credit". Or maybe no price is too high to piss off that suspiciously un-white president in the Oval Office.
But that's the Tea Party, a group of people who will always turn lemonade into lemons and lemons into cyanide. Everyone else, including the world markets, considers this as a less than positive development. But I must profess surprise that the Daily Mail hasn't started waving its overused pitchfork at the diminishment of high grades: surely a triple A must be seen in their eyes as the pathetic grown up's equivalent of A* at A-levels. Melanie Phillips, you can have that one for free.
So what can be done to restore America's standing? Well, S&P, displaying the wisdom that presumably made it give the thumbs up to Lehman Brothers in the summer of 08, has said that all the US needs to do is win "more consensus", tutting like a school teacher who tells two squabbling children who loathe one another that they just need to be friends. Earth to S&P: "Can't we all just get along?" didn't even work for Rodney King. It's just not how America rolls.
So let's see what other people recommend:
1. Prayer This is Texas governor Rick Perry's suggestion, who had a big ol' prayer rally this weekend in Houston for, um, something. Certainly not to promote his upcoming almost certain presidential campaign, that's for sure. And let's hope not for his sake, seeing as his request in April for prayers for rain in Texas have failed to come to any kind of fruition.
2. Just make it work for you Michele Bachmann said a month ago that a default wouldn't be that big a deal. She then changed that tune this weekend when she blamed Obama's "failed economic policies" for the downgrade. So in other words, just turn whatever the situation is into something that might help your presidential campaign. Screw the masses, think about yourself. I told you America was competitive.
3. Change the name of Standard & Poor's My suggestion. How can something with such an un-American name possibly fathom the American financial psyche? So instead of Standard & Poor's, let's have Awesome & Bling. Moody's and Fitch allowed America to keep its triple A rating, although they, too, should be Americanised to, oh, say, Abercrombie and Fitch. There. Much better.