Is there an opportunity for India in the US rating cut by Moody's?

We can position India as a stable economy in a world where American debt seems unsustainable

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN is a corporate advisor and author of 'Family and Dhanda'

There is something ironic about the world's largest economy being nudged off its pedestal by a credit rating agency whose word it once treated as gospel. The decision by Moody's to downgrade US sovereign debt from its long-held Aaa status to Aal lands like a reality show cliffhanger. This marks the first time in over a century that none of the world's three major credit rating agencies has a top-tier rating for the US.

America's debt trajectory has been climbing with the conviction of a mountain goat and grace of a runaway truck. Political brinkmanship over debt ceilings has become something of a domestic ritual. Government shutdowns occur with a regularity that suggests more choreography than crisis.

Yet, it is worth remembering that Moody's has only confirmed what most informed observers already knew. What the rating agency has done is strip away the layers of denial that successive administrations, particularly of Donald Trump, have contributed to. It is a bit like watching an addict insist on being in control while the addict's finances, routines and credibility unravel.

For Trump, who has built much of his political narrative on claims of economic strength and fiscal genius, this development lands awkwardly. That the downgrade came on the same day that his spending bill was blocked by his own party's fiscally hawkish members only sharpens the irony.