France, Austria, Italy and Spain (and five others) downgraded by S&P

As everyone notes (I claim no originality here), this downgrading, and the general longer-term warning therein implied. damages badly Europe's crisis management process. Confidence in European financial circumstances will fall, and the additional costs of borrowing that follow make crisis-management all the more difficult. Germany continues to avoid adverse financial consequences, but the anti-German feeling in Europe will also be fed by this news.