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Moody’s Downgrades Belgium Two Levels To Aa3, Outlook Negative

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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nationsonline.org
In another blow to the belief the European leaders have begun to gain control of the region’s sovereign debt problem, Moody’s downgraded Belgium by two levels to Aa3 and placed its sovereign paper on negative credit watch.

The downgrade is part of a river of similar actions taken by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch as they continue to evaluate the prospects that austerity budgets can improve deficits in the midst of what appears to have become a deep recession across much of Europe.

Recently, the EU has agreed to increase the size of the fund that will be used to bailout larger economies like Spain and Italy. Many economists believe that the amount is inadequate and that there is not likely to be additional aid from the IMF or ECB.

Credit agencies continue to review the debt of both sovereigns and banks in the region, and more downgrades are to be expected.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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