Debt Rating for the Internet Age

With the recent financial crisis, and unrest in the Middle East and north Africa, there has been much talk in the news of changes to countries’ debt ratings – usually for the worse. But their scale, not to put too fine a point on it, is mad.

There’s an A, B and a C, sure. But there’s also Aaa, Aa1, Aa2, Aa3, A1, A2, A3… then we get to Baa, which is presumably index-linked to the country’s sheep industry. Then beneath that are the “Junk” ratings, which rather than being something intuitive like “F”, run the entire gamut between Ba1 and C, a total of 11 different levels.

I propose that, for the 21st Century, we establish a 21st Century naming scheme to replace these bizarre terms. The scheme would be intuitive and contemporary, and thus much more easily understood by the layman. The levels map as follows:

Moody’s Rating

New Rating

C

FFFFUUUUUUUU-

Ca

Epic Fail

Caa

OMG

B

WTF

Ba

BBQ

Baa

LOL

A

u jelly?

Aa

Epic Win

Aaa

Never gonna let you down

“In light of recent unrest, Libya’s debt has been downgraded from ‘LOL’ to ‘WTF’.” See? Simple. Intuitive.

And if you clicked that link, you have no-one to blame but yourself.