Fitch maintains top credit rating for US

There is little doubt that the US economy is facing serious debt/deficit problems.But what one fails to understand is the role of the credit rating agencies with particular reference to one of them.Often there are reports that some of them try to fish in troubled waters. This appeared to be clear during the recent debt ceiling discussion at Washington.What I understand as a free citizen here is that some of these agencies tried to dictate terms taking advantage of the divergence of views at the lawmakers' level.Yet the prestige and borrowers' credit of the US govt was little affected; and even now this country is only one which can guarantee China and other lenders that it is our constitutional as well as moral responsibility to pay the debt come what may.But one wonders who is there to audit these auditors? Are they super human beings? Have they not played a role in bringing the financial crisis and even near collapse of some financial institutions due to their false ratings? In some instances they appear even to be scoring points against each other.In my opinion there should be some legal mechanism or system of checks and balances to discipline these agencies. I suggest a thorough probe against the working methodology and apparent lack of professionalism there to restore market confidence. Perhaps it is due to downgrading of our AAA rating which has embolden China to give us lecture on financial discipline and say that we are eating May's grain in April. Incidentally, our VP Mr.Biden is in China today. I write these lines because anything tarnishing the image of our country can't be tolerated.And also we are concerned that the debt/deficit problems must not be allowed to linger on any more.