Fitch, Fitch, Fitch...

TPM's Igor Bobic:

Credit rating agency Fitch placed U.S. holdings, which remain AAA, on negative watch Tuesday, as Congressional negotiations over the federal debt ceiling stalled just two days before a Thursday deadline.

"Fitch continues to believe that an agreement will be reached to end the current political impasse and raise the U.S. debt ceiling," the agency said in a press release. "Even if the debt limit is not raised before or shortly after 17 October, we assume there is sufficient political will and capacity to ensure that Treasury securities will continue to be honoured in full and on time."

...

It's good of them to cut the US some slack. But I don't like the sound of this...

Obama Knew He Had A Fed Chair Nominee Around Him Summers...

Larry Summers, former Treasury secretary and Obama's presumptive favorite for the position of chair of the Federal Reserve, withdrew his name from consideration today. Summers was a highly divisive choice even among Obama's supporters; some even say Summers was the person most responsible for the international financial crisis and thus for the five years (so far) of the Great Recession and painfully slow recovery that followed it. I tend to think of Summers as a banker's banker who has done little for ordinary individuals in financial trouble and far more for banks seeking bailouts, but YMMV.