This final note today, in which S&P beats up on Warren Buffet. The billionaire went on CNBC this morning, said he wasn’t worried at all about the debt downgrade and said, in fact, that the downgrade changed his opinion of S&P — not his opinion of U.S. Treasuries.Funnily enough, couple of hours later, S&P put Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway on notice for a possible downgrade.
Hmmm.
Also, we should note here: Berkshire Hathaway’s the single biggest shareholder in S&P’s competitor, Moody’s.
Comments, observations and thoughts from two bloggers on applied statistics, higher education and epidemiology. Joseph is an associate professor. Mark is a professional statistician and former math teacher.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Bad optics
I'm sure there's nothing sinister going on here, but S&P certainly has a gift for looking bad (from Marketplace):
In the long run, that type of retaliation will simply cost S&P their business -- even if it is perceived and not actual. Ironically, S&P has actually managed to continue a pattern of taking damage with this downgrade.
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