Last week, the rating agency, Standard & Poor's, downgraded the credit ratings for nine countries, France, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia. Yet just a couple months ago, S&P raised Brazil's foreign currency rating with little fanfare. According to John Chambers, S&P Managing Director Sovereign Ratings, "the upgrade of Brazil was supported by the current administration's growing track record of prudent macroeconomic policies, including fairly consistent primary surpluses of close to 3% of GDP."