S&P president hopes US downgrade is seen as objective

Washington: Standard & Poor’s President Deven Sharma sent out the message today that he hoped the downgrade of America’s credit ratings from AAA to AA+ last week, that shook the world, would over time be seen as objective and independent. [caption id=“attachment_57941” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Sharma said that the market reaction in the last few days couldn’t be attributed to S&P’s decision on the US credit rating. Getty Images”]  [/caption] “I hope over time that people recognise that we are objective and independent. We call risks as we see them with a forward-looking view,” Sharma, an Indian-American, told reporters. “You have to look at it in the context of history, five or 10 years from now. If (US political dysfunction) doesn’t change, history will say that we made the right risk call,” he said. Sharma said that people S&P was wrong even when they downgraded Japan. " It was the second largest economy and it was coming off so much economic strength. People wondered, what the hell we were talking about. But now Japan has more than 200% debt to GDP and the problem there is big," Sharma said. Sharma said that the market reaction in the last few days couldn’t be attributed to S&P’s decision on the US credit rating. Sharma suggested the number of factors that could affect the markets, such as the debt situation in Europe, the economic slowdown in the US, a slowdown in high-growth markets that could impact US companies with a mix of global revenues and uncertainty around how US government that will achieve the $ 1.5 trillion in cuts. However, he praised the speech of US President Barack Obama on Monday. He said that the two challenges, the rising debt level and the economic process by which they create an action plan to address the debt, pointed out by the President, were the reasons they downgraded the US. Sharma refused to entertain a question on whether the credit rating revision would make Obama a one-time President. “Our role is to speak of credit risk. If politicians can come up with a game plan to address debt levels, figure out a way to drive growth and lower unemployment, it will be good for everyone and for the country broadly,” he said. PTI