It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for. Matt Taibbi
The once-unthinkable loss of the AAA rating will constitute a further hit to already fragile business and consumer confidence. Mohamed El-Erian
Junk bonds prove there's nothing magical in a Aaa bond rating. Merton Miller
I mean, Iceland is Iceland. It can't do damage to anybody unless you're Icelandic. But the United States can drag down the entire western economy. And I think what we are seeing is simply a reflection of reality. This is not, I'm sorry, but this is not a AAA nation. Mark Steyn
What the mortgage bubble was all about was big banks like Goldman Sachs taking big bundles of subprime mortgages that were lent out largely to low-income, highly risky borrowers, and applying this kind of magic-pixie-dust math to these bundles of securities and slapping AAA ratings on them. Matt Taibbi
Michigan is also the only industrial state that has a AAA credit rating. John Engler