The Post Gets It Right on the Debt Downgrade and the Stock Market

The Post featured an Outlook piece by Liaquat Ahmat, that made the obvious point that Standard and Poor's downgrade could not plausibly be blamed for the stock market plunge. The downgrade most immediately was an assessment of the creditworthiness of U.S. government bonds. These soared in price. The most obvious basis for the plunge in stock prices was the fear of the break-up of the euro and a financial freeze-up of the type that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman in the fall of 2008.