On Friday, Moody’s Investors Service tapped gently on the marble pedestal of American exceptionalism—and the sound rang out across trading floors and into the subconscious of an already jittery financial system. The United States was demoted from a pristine “Aaa” to a slightly more terrestrial “Aa1.” Not a fall from grace, exactly, but a reminder that even empires, in the end, carry ledgers.
