S&P move raises costs of China's fixed currency

The short-term impact of Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the United States to AA+ from AAA is likely to be minimal, but the long-term implications are huge. The question now is whether America’s politicians find a way to put the country on a painful path to long-term solvency, or if this downgrade is but the first in a drawn-out sequence of deterioration. Last week, conversations in New York and Boston with many experienced fixed-income chiefs at money-management firms made i…