The much sought after international rating agencies including Standard & Poor’s and Moody are said on Monday that there will be no immediate downgrade of their credit ratings on the United States due to the inability of the congressional ‘super committee’ in reaching an agreement on debt reduction. The third leading ratings agency, Fitch, which recently had the most positive rating amongst the three on US debt said, it could cut the outlook on its ‘triple-A’ rating, with a downgrade not on the cards.

US lawmakers announced they had withdrawn their effort to rein in the country’s debt, in a sign that Washington will not be able to resolve a dispute over taxes and spending until 2013-after next year’s presidential and congressional elections. The committee was given the task to cut US deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. US President Obama, seeking to calm sinking financial markets, said the US was not facing an impending threat of default-as it did last August- and that there would be at least $2.2 trillion in deficit cuts over 10 years.

In addition to the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts that are to be triggered with the super committee’s failure, there was $1 trillion in cuts agreed to in August that was locked in. S&P’s current AA+ rating on the United States long-term debt is the second-highest rating. However, the agency’s outlook on that rating is negative. Moody’s rates the long-term US debt as triple A, with a negative outlook.

Far away from the madding crowd, the Australians won the Second Test Match against the South Africans in a titanic clash by 2 wickets to level the series 1-1. The Australian debutant Pat Cummins had a dream debut picking up 7 wickets and hitting the winning runs in a remarkable test series where both sides had a rollercoaster of a ride from start to finish. It is a pity there is no third test as the decider. There was a certain placard amongst the crowd which read ‘Who said Test Matches are dead? ” Indeed, it is not!