The BBC reports:
China has scolded the US over its "addiction to debt" after rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the US' top-notch AAA rating to AA+.
State news agency Xinhua said unless the US cut its "gigantic military expenditure and bloated welfare costs," another downgrade would be inevitable.
But other countries, such as Australia, France and Japan, said they retained their faith in US bonds.
The downgrade ended a week of growing uncertainty for the world economy.
Fears that the US might be headed for a double-dip recession and the eurozone's debt problems were set to spread to Italy and Spain saw stock market sell-offs around the world.
The downgrade is a major embarrassment for the administration of President Barack Obama and could raise the cost of US government borrowing.
This in turn could trickle down to higher interest rates for local governments and individuals.
In the US, it has been the Tea Party which has consistently called for lower spending and lower taxes, knowing that failure to act would one day have huge consequences felt by all. Yet, this hasn't stopped those on the left in the States calling the Tea Party 'terrorists'. There has been, so far, collective silence on the left in the US.
Who would have thought that the Chinese would give America a lesson in fiscal conservatism, of all subjects?
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