Even a downgrade of US debt will , after a few days/weeks play take a backseat to what is coming in Europe. The latest "fix" has not fixed anything. There will be fix after fix coming and each one will be too little too late. The debt holders of the Southern European nations plus Ireland will need to accept that big haircuts are coming. These are solvency problems not merely questions of liquidity. Like dominoes four, five and maybe even six countries are going down over the next few years. And the bailouts over the next year are going to weaken even the strong. Insanity reigns and the consequences are truly ominous.