Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Brunch, our Sunday look ahead to this week's

market-moving events, along with the weekend's top news and analysis.

Hello, today is Sunday, May 18th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

Moody's ratings has downgraded the U.S. government's long-term issuer and senior

unsecured ratings to AA1 from AAA, the highest possible rating, due to a combination of

skyrocketing debt and high interest payment ratios. The one-notch downgrade to our 21-notch rating

scale reflects the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios

to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns, Moody said.

The firm pointed out the success of U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to adequately

address or reverse the trend of annual fiscal deficits and rising interest costs.

We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending

and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration, Moody's added.

Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises, while government

revenue remains broadly flat. In turn, persistent large fiscal deficits will drive the government's

debt and interest burden higher.

The U.S.'s fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compare it to other highly rated sovereigns.

The global risk assessment firm also adjusted the outlook to stable from negative.

The stable outlook stems from the fact that the U.S. still holds, quote, exceptional credit

strengths, unquote, due in part to its size, a dynamic and diverse economy, and the role of the U.S.

dollar as a global reserve currency. In addition, while recent months have been characterized

by a degree of policy uncertainty, we expect that the U.S. will continue its long history

of very effective monetary policy

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