“I hear from fairly solid people,” says Bell, “who say, ‘Boy, the fact that nothing happened doesn’t help your cause, does it?’ I say, ‘No shit.”

The political class, at least as Bell encounters it, has been lulled a bit by the lack of catastrophes. It forgets that Moody’s and Fitch could still downgrade the United States, and that Moody’s has been nice and transparent with its threat. One rating agency can’t do much to the reserve currency’s strength. Two could, though. That’s because there are an untold number of portfolios with requirements that require a certain amount of AAA bonds on the pile. Some of them will be forced to move the bonds if a majority of ratings agencies downgrades Treasuries.

Even when you consider that, we’re lucky. Some portfolios, including a lot of state pensions, require a certain rating level for most bonds they hold, but waive that requirement for Treasury bonds. That means the apocalypse could be put off even further, which is why the debt hawks are so worried. No crisis for Congress to panic about; no leverage for them to pass some combination of tax hikes and entitlement cuts.

That was exactly what S&P wanted, and it’s what Moody’s implies that it wants as it puts America’s bond rating on notice.