It probably bears worth repeating that if there were much about about Moody's clout in the sovereign debt arena, it should have be erased today: Moody's has no clout.

A downgrade of Ireland early on barely produced a blip on any market anywhere.

That follows a recent spectacularly uneventful downgrade of Portugal.

Every once in a while Moody's lobs a very vague warning about debt and spending in the direction of London and Washington DC, and occasionally the subject of the US losing its AAA rating comes up.

But really, Moody's is NOT going to be ahead of the US downgrade curve. And they certainly don't want to be responsible for it. As Niall Ferguson points out, collapses come suddenly.

If (when?) the collapse happens, it will happen well before Moody's gets around to noticing.