i believe it was know well before hand how deep the cuts were needed to avoid a downgrade and how soon congress had to sort out the issue
when the debt ceiling was raised at the eleventh hour with minimal cuts then the downgrade was a done deal in the eyes of the market as it fell far too short of the cuts expected by moodys and it was too slow in execution
two strikes and yer out!
remember moodys copped a lot of criticism about their ratings system being too generous to vested interests and this is their payback
