Standard & Poors: Tiny Private Company threatens World's 4th largest Economy

Here are the News: Standard & Poors (allegedly) is downgrading Germany!
Fear!
Panic!
Here is a different reading: tiny little private corporation, a subsidy of American Media Company McGraw Hills, threatens fourth largest economy of the world.
Who gave he Media Company McGraw Hill the right to influence the life of people in countries across the globe? By which legitimate democratic process were they empowered to dictate government decisions in EU countries? I did not see Standard and Poors as a party on a ballot list.
Here is my judgement: Standard & Poors have no legitimacy to influence policy, and their past failures render them incompetent as well. On top the rating agencies are, in comparison, tiny little companies, private organizations, that have no more -   and no less - right to express their opinion than you or me. The total profit of McGraw Hills in 2010 was something in the range of 800 Million US$. That's a flea sh*t compared to the economies those megalomaniacs regularly dare to rate. Rating agencies are the latest symptom of a cancerous system gone havoc. And then there is "the market" listening to "the rating agencies". When did we hand over world government to the monkey house?

Stefan Thiesen is a Germany, UK and USA educated earth and space scientist and science writer. He is an expert in marine science, climatology and planetary sciences, author of several popular science books in German and English as well as a novel and numerous short pieces. he is a regular contributor to www.Opednews.com.