Tick, tick, tick.
http://www.benzinga.com/forex/189805/portugal-s-debt-downgraded-euro-slides

That's 2 little PIIGieS going wee-wee-wee.

Quick lesson ahead so get ready to ignore. ;)

Both countries are heavily leveraged, deeply in debt and now their bailouts will cost them even more. This is putting increasing pressure on the Euro which affects the entire Euro zone. They are but 2 of 5 Euro countries which are in desperate trouble and staring down the barrel insolvency. The other members have their own economic and domestic issues and realization is starting to creep zone-wide regarding what a colossal cluster-blank the whole Euro idea was from the beginning. Germany is openly balking at helping Greece, think their reaction to Portugal will be different?

Now how does this affect the US? The Euro is sinking, causing the dollar to rise once again. The one positive holding up this "recovery" is that the weak dollar causes export sales to increase and it costs us less in interest on the debt. If that positive turns negative...

This of course says nothing regarding the similarity between the US's debt ratio and the PIIGS...that just coincidence...right?