France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain are banning short selling in order to “stabilize markets” in a move similar to what the SEC did after Lehman. And we all know how that ended. This might just be another bad decision that doesn’t in fact stop the value from dropping as it serves as confirmation that something is systemically wrong. The spiral downwards continues on it seems.

This move follows restrictions in volume and trading by Turkey, South Korea, and Greece. Stay tuned for more updates on the EU and its markets.

Standard and Poor’s downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA citing not enough spending cuts and falling political confidence as primary reasons. The cut comes after many warnings from S&P as well as Moody’s (who has not yet downgraded the US). Of course in response the White House made the phony claim that S&P made errors in their accounting as the administration tries to bully their way to a reversal. Ah, the stupidity of politics.

The announcement was made on Friday evening as these things often are so the market reaction Monday will be interesting, especially given the rough week Wall St. faced last week. Some are saying that due to the warnings and all the discussions around the debt ceiling, that most of this downgrade might already be priced in, but only time will tell. Either way however, a double dip back into recession seems even more likely (can’t say we didn’t tell ya so). And that is if you buy the manipulated official announcements of recessions- I think there is a strong claim that the recession never even ended in the first place.

Either way, there you have it- the United States is no longer considered the safest bet by one of the top credit rating agencies. What’s next?

The revised bill that House Leader John Boehner submitted for a vote today just passed the House of Representatives and will raise the debt limit by $900 billion. The bill will now head to the Senate where Majority Leader Reid will have to decide what to do in terms of pushing his plan or Boehner’s and garnering support from both sides for a compromise. Either way politicians from both sides will have to play a role in any deal otherwise it likely won’t pass into law. The road ahead will still have arguments and likely be bumpy and as usual I don’t expect D.C. to do much good (if any at all).

The Boehner plan is apparently to cut $91.7 billion per year for 10 years. Most of the cuts would happen in the later years as 2012 would see less than a $25 billion cut. Talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too. Oh and the plan would likely mean another debt ceiling debate in oh… 4 months. That later part is most likely more political and will be heavily disliked by the pro-spending incumbents (in rhetoric of course, in reality most of them are just that) who face reelection in 2012- including President Obama. Senate Democrats have already said they will vote against the House Leader’s plan. And here we go again…

Gold hit 1625.70 earlier today as CDS traders worried about a potential United States downgrade due to the debt ceiling debate and the lack of a solution thus far. The USD was not alone in feeling the pressure as the Euro felt its fair share of the pain as the EU continues to deal with the mess that they created there. A recent poll by Reuters suggests that a sizeable amount of economists in the United States see a downgrade coming, although they do not expect a default.