World's Most Powerful Man? Meet David Beers from S&P...

It turns out the world’s most powerful man is not a world leader, not an elected official and not a billionaire businessman. If you want to find out who can crash international markets and provoke the loss of trillions of dollars by erasing one letter (A), look no further than David Beers, Global Head of Sovereign Ratings at S&P. The aftermath of S&P’s downgrade to the U.S. credit rating was scary. On Monday, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 6.7% and 5.6%, respectively. All stocks in the S&P 500 retreated for the first time since at least 1996 – and the index’s 10 main groups fell more than 5.3%. So who is this David Beers guy? While most have never heard his name before, he is well known by virtually every finance minister in the world. He is a Wall Street veteran and graduated from the London School of Economics. Beyond that, David Beers background and biography is a mystery to most.

But what’s more of a mystery to most people is the power and relevance of the S&P, or more broadly, the collective group of rating agencies. It’s difficult to fathom how these companies have the authority to shake the global economy like this. Their role is very similar to a credit bureau that hands out scores to households and individuals seeking loans. Their reputation for assessing risk has been shaky on more than one occasion. Could this be a new blackeye for S&P? To be certain, it’s going to be tough for Beers & Co. to adequately justify their recent downgrade of the U.S. Much of the rating report submitted by S&P focused on the political dysfunction of the U.S. government as opposed to its true ability to repay its debt. From S&P’s perspective, the question really isn’t whether the U.S. can repay its debts, it’s whether the U.S. is willing to repay. The political logjam from the recent debt crisis highlighted the fact that the U.S. certainly has the ability to make payments but there are many politicians who are unwilling to write the check. And this is what the S&P is most troubled by. While Warren Buffett thinks the U.S. deserves a "quadruple A" rating, the S&P is only halfway there, and that is making all the difference in the markets today.