And you are here why?

So, it looks like S&P has cut Greece's rating to "Selective Default" To which, all I have to say is Could you possibly be later to the party ?  Seriously, as Barry Ritholz points out When a borrower informs their lenders that they will a) Not be repaying the full loan amount; and b) Not making those reduced payments on time — they are technically   in default . When they then  fail to make the full payments on time, they are actually in default Everybody has known for at least 6 months (you could argue for 2 yrs) that Greece was not going to be repaying the loan amounts on time.  Everybody! . Brings up the obvious question - does anybody even care about the ratings agencies any more? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The NY Times reports that S&P was whacking away with their hatchet today.  The summary France has gone from AAA to AA+ (one notch) Austria has gone from AAA to AA+ (one notch) Italy has gone from A to BBB+ (two notches) Portugal has gone from BBB- to BB (two notches, and is now junk) Spain has gone from AA- to A (two notches) What could make for some serious entertainment though, is that with France losing its AAA, it is quite likely that the EFSF (the "silver bullet" / "bailout fund" / "magic bottle containing confidence fairies") is probably also going to lose its AAA rating, and go to AA+.  Which is most certainly Not Good, since a pretty decent chunk of the Rube-Goldberg mechanisms that the Eurozone is planning on using to save the Euro/Greece/Italy/whoever is based on AAA ratings. For bonus points, this probably is the death-knell for Sarkozy's electoral hopes - he essentially spent the entire duration of the euro-crisis (yea...