next on msnbc saturday, the disgrace of downgrade. is the u.s. no longer a safe investment, and how will america's credit rating affect your pocketbook? then how will it play out politically in the battle for the white house? we have live reports and analysis coming up straight ahead. good morning, everyone. welcome to msnbc saturday. i'm alex witt. just past 9:00 a.m. in the east, 6:00 a.m. out west. let's see what's happening out there, and we begin this hour with the breaking news out of afghanistan where senior administration officials say 31 u.s. special operations forces and seven afghan soldiers have died after a nato helicopter crashed during an overnight operation in the tangi valley just wetz of kabul. we begin now live with atia with the very latest. atia, with another good morning. i know you have been following the story for us. have officials given an explanation, confirmed how this happened?

>> good morning, alex. we're still waiting to hear from u.s. and nato officials here in afghanistan. they seem to be very tight lipped at the moment, as they're investigating exactly what happened. the information that we are getting from is from the afghan president hamid karzai. we should also float that the information that president karzai gets is the same information -- practically the same information that nato gets. he says that, in fact, 31 u.s. special forces along with seven afghan special forces were killed when their helicopter went down. this is a southwest part of the province that borders logar mrov ins. very volatile areas in afghanistan for the last ten years, for the history of many afghan wars, in fact. that's the information coming out of afghanistan. we're also hearing from the taliban who have claimed responsibility. in a statement, they say that a nato helicopter was approaching one of their compounds that housed many of their insurgents,

and when that helicopter came towards them, that's when they shot a rocket firing at this helicopter, bringing it down. they also claim that they killed 38 members of the nato coalition. they also say that they lost eight of their own fighters. >> okay. >> alex. >> atia, the taliban claims that they brought down this helicopter. how credible are they given where this incident happened? >> well, we have to be very careful when it comes to taliban claims. we've been getting claims from the taliban for many years now, often exaggerated claims. what's interesting here is that they had this same number of forces who were killed as the afghan government released, considering the area of the taliban, they know this area very well. the insurgency knows this area very well. this is a place that's more operatable for themselves because they can actually get within the community. something that's very hard when it comes to nato and u.s. forces. they can't blend in the way the

taliban can blend in, and the taliban spokesperson actually says that he keeps getting fresh reports from his sources on the ground, talking about the investigation that's taking place, and that there are currently americans on the ground, which we're also hearing from afghan officials, in fact, that they are still searching for bodies as well as pieces of that helicopter. >> okay. thank you for that update. let's move from there now to the newest blow for the u.s. economy, because for the first time ever the country has lost its triple-a credit rating. standard & poor's says it decided to take the u.s. down a notch after the long drawn out debt fight in washington. cnbc chief washington correspondent john harwood is live for us again this morning. with another good morning to you, john. wasn't this big debt deal supposed to help the u.s. avoid these financial problems? we kept on talking about the possibility of downgrading. when they put this deal together, that was not supposed to happen. >> we did think that it was going to avoid a downgrade. look, standard & poor's had said

earlier in the year that they needed to see a $4 trillion deal. i think everyone involved in washington was counting on the fact that they would ultimately look at the deal that was passed, even though it fell short of that and say, yeah, the u.s. political process is messy and dysfunctional, but ultimately they get moving in the right direction. they'll keep moving in the right direction. the supreme court said no. not only did you not provide the level of deal that we needed, but you put on display the bitter divisions, the republicans resisting tax increases. we need entitlement cuts as well. all those things that didn't materialize in a big way, and the u.s. is going to pay the price for that through this downgrade. >> okay. tell me how the u.s. pays the price for it? how about put it into you and me to our pocketbooks. i mean, should you or i go for car loans, home loans, how is it going to affect us? >> well, i should have said, alex, we don't know for sure that we're going to pay a big price. in fact, the administration is hoping that we won't, but if we did, it would be because

investors would be more reluctant to lented e lend to the united states at interest rates as low as they've been paying. they would say if we're going to lend you money, we need more in interest. that would, in turn, raise your and my mortgages payments, our auto pams, all of the interest rates that we pay. the administration is hoping that investors already know about u.s. treasuries, that they're equivalent to cash, that it is not going to given the difficulties in other economies around the world, people are still going to want to invest here. they're not going to demand higher interest rates. we're just going to have to see how investors and how the financial markets reacted. >> yeah. can i just ask you how the white house is pushing back on what they're alleging that the whole s&p financial figuring, they're adding up of numbers does not add up properly? >> when the treasury department got standard & poor's notice of an intent to downgrade and their reasoning, their career officials looked at the computations and said, wait a minute, you're off by $2

trillion in your assessment of what we're going to spend on discretionary programs. that had to do with a bunch of complicated accounting, but ultimately it came down to the treasury saying we're not going to spend as much under this deal as you think we are. standard & poor's acknowledged that. what they said was that in the broadest sense, they were looking at the dysfunction in our political system and making a judgment about our ability to take the next step that is need to be taken to get our debt problems under control and they found those lacking. >> okay. john harwood, a perfect position at the white house thoughed. thank you very much. sfwlirchlgts ron insana joining us in studio. thank you for coming in, ron. we have to ask you, what kifr a hit is this for the u.s.? >> you know, first of all, it's an odd one, alex, to be perfectly blunt. standard & poor's has said nothing about u.s. finances since the debt was doubled between 2001 and 2009 from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. just as they said little about the moubting debt problems in

europe before they hit crisis stage. they also missed the subprime mess that led to a serious financial catastrophe back in 2008, so in my mind their credibility is effectively shot. the statement that john just described was largely a political one, not an economic one. the great irony here is that during this european debt crisis that continues to broaden, investors from around the world have been flooding into the u.s. and buying u.s. treasury bonds. ironically enough, as the safe haven investment. it's hard to be the safe haven and a riskier credit at the same time. i would question the downgrade on its economic merits because they seem to be making more of a political statement. what we don't know right now is how the markets will react. there's the conventional wisdom, and then there are some other options as well as to how wall street will respond come monday morning. >> we know wall street does not like jitters in any way, shape, or form. what are your expectations az long-time insider? >> let me run through the

conventional wisdom option first. when your debt is downgraded, presumably the institutions like money market mutual funds that can only own triple rated -- triple-a rated paper would be forced to sell. now, that would create a massive selloff in the treasury bond market, which means considerably higher interest rates, foreign investors like china, japan, britain, might sell treasuries as well. the dollar would crumble. stocks would crash. gold would go through the roof. that is what most people fear because of all the gown grades and the intractability of the problems they have on the debt side. the flip side is will the market look through this right away and instead of having interest rates go up, will they plunge because no matter what happens, if the u.s. accelerates its cost cutting and deficit reduction, will weaken the economy and lead to a recession, in which case we have lower interest rates, lower stock prices, maybe a weaker drar dollar and higher gold. the real question is which way do interest ritz go on monday.

i think we know about the other asset classes. they could move mow teshlly very sharply. do you know what that could happen? >> there is a long history of this lasting long periods of time, whether it's japan, latten america, or other countries that have been downgraded. now, whether or not congress with its new november 23rd deadline to finish the rest of its deficit cutting plan goes from adding another trillion and a half dollars in reducks to meeting the $4 trillion target that s&p had wanted originally is an open question. then you have to ask about what the economic impact would be. it's very difficult to get back to triple-a status once you have been downgraded. what i worry most about, alex, here is that there will be some sort of slap dash knee jerk response by the government to meet that $4 trillion deficit reduction target without thinking it through in temz of its economic impact at a time

when even though friday's jobs report was reasonable, this economy is still quite fragile, and subject to a double dip if it faces another shock or series of shocks. we've already got slowing growth in europe and debt problems there that we talked about. china is slowing down. india is slowing down. this is very ill-timed in a certain sense, and maybe at least from my perspective be ill-advised as well. >> i'm assuming you've going to refer to increased revenue, correct? >> well, listen, you know, implicit in this criticism chgs the fact that the tea party republicans had taken increased revenue off the table. there is a solution for this problem that is entirely reasonable and rationale. the simpson-bolles proposal that came out of the president's deficit reduction panel is a very well thought out $4 trillion deficit reduction plan that would probably not harm the economy in the near term and would improve it in the long run. it was unfortunately thrown under the bus by the president. it was not voted on by congress.

if they reverse the whole process they just went through and pup putt it up for an up or down vote that, would have a lot of traction with the markets. unfortunately, i'm not sure that's what the political process will bring us to. >> we'll bring you back for a roundtable discussion at the bottom of the hour. >> in our continuing coverage, the political impolitics. who will get the blame? we'll take a look at that on msnbc saturday. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

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this morning we are looking at the s&p downgrade of the u.s. credit. a foreman member of president obama's team and now an msnbc contributor discussed the credit downgrade last night with rachel maddow. >> first of all, they're one of three. it's easy to just think, oh, my goodness, the u.s. debt has been downgraded, end of story.

no. as long as the other two have us a triple-a, which they do and this they asserted they'll keep at least for a while, there are lots of things that probably don't happen. if all three downgraded at the same time, lots of pension funds, for example, would automatically have to divest. they would have to get rid of their treasury holdings. >> they have rules that say you can only invest in triple-a. >> bingo. >> those rules don't necessarily apply. in most cases they don't which it's just one of three takes us down that one notch. >> that was jared bernstein on the rachel maddo show last night. michelle bachmann reacted to the credit downgrade by calling on the president to replace his treasury secretary. >> he is destroying the foundation of the united states economy one beam at a time. i call on the president to seek the immediate resignation of treasury secretary timothy

geithner. >> good morning. >> good morning, alex. >> do you think the president is going to take the majority of the blame for this? >> well, i think what's really important is what jared bernstein was talking about whether or not all three ratings agencies take us down. at that point it would very quickly show up in interest rates and it would affect everybody's borrowing costs, and it would be, you know -- it would be staggering affect on this country because only one rating agency has done that. we don't expect the kinds of dramatic effects that the three ratings downgrades would bring. i think that president obama logical take the blame for this. i think republicans will share many some blame. you saw mitt romney put out a statement last night saying that this is a troubling indicator of the decline of the country under president obama and speaker boehner also released a statement blaming democrats and the president for out of control spending and saying that republicans reminding everyone that republicans refuse to give

the president's request for a clean debt ceiling increase back in april. so they are quick to place blame on the president, and this will be another struggle for a very tough economy. >> what michelle bachmann is calling for replacing treasury secretary tim geithner. is he a fair target? >> it's very easy for everyone to blame the treasury secretary, and tim good night measure wants to leave his job right now. the administration just doesn't want to let him leave. you know, there are other -- i think michelle bachmann would be better, you know, focussing her attention on the super committee that the law that just passed on tuesday to avert default created in order to tackle the rest of the debt reduction plan. that was not completed in august, and that's going to take place this fall. that's very essential to future status and our bond rating and that is really probably more going to be the focus of congressional leaders when they return and not tim good night measure's job. >> analysts are saying the cost

of this downgrade could be an added $100 billion a year for the government. check that out as being 83%, as much as we spend on the afghanistan war. that's $120 billion a year. this will be essentially another war. can the president be re-elected after this? >> well, the president, alex, auz know, is going to be re-elected if unemployment improves xshgs if it doesn't, it's not likely that he will be, because this is -- you know, our long-term unemployment and our underemployment numbers are awful, and they're not changing. back to the super committee. i think that, you know, they have a november 23rd deadline here in the congress. they could revive a grand bargain. they could actually get at the $4 trillion or more that experts had said we needed to reach in order to really sustain ourselves over the next ten years and more. that actually could buy him some time. i mean, this could end up costing them a billion or more, but not if the numbers change.

still ahead, the crack of the battalion followed by a direct hit to the head. a line drive brings frightening moments to a baseball game. up next, seeking bargains for your day at the beach. and a bit later, stellar no more. we'll have more on the downgrade of the country's credit rating and how it could increase cost from wall street to main street. ! [ male announcer ] this...is the network --

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third after seeing sales drop by about 30%. it's hard not to get jealous this time of year when you're flipping through magazines or seeing photos of celebrities of fabulous vacations. there are a number of resorts and kind of kweshgy hotels that offer the celeb experience on the cheap. the senior editor on orbits. janine, let's get right to this. we check out cabo san lucas. celebrities have gone to where? >> there is one resort capella, and it's a five star property in cabo. cabo is a hotspot for so many celebrity lites because of its proximity to los angeles, and they have so many wonderful five star properties. this one in particular is popular because they have huge private terraces. they have plunge pools in the rooms. you have your own private pool. however, the price, you know, you pay for it. $575 a night is an average rate in august. certainly there's the price to pay for debt that type of

luxury. >> when you say august, i know it's low season because it's pretty darn hot. less expensive you can go to the me. >> it is a four star property. you're not going get the private plunge pools in your room, but you're certainly going to get a lot of the am same ambience. they have private cabanas on the pool by the beach. it's a luxurious property for a much less price in august. it's offseason. $157 per night is the average rate. >> not bad at all. look at those. you have your private cabanas and the like. what about paradise island because i know that's a justin bieber hangout. he has been to the cove. that's pretty pricey. >> it is, but the unique thing about atlantis as a property is there are different levels of luxury. if you don't want to pay the $600 plus a night to stay in the cove where we see a lot of the celebrities staying, carrie underwood, justin bieber, they have other towers. the beach tower, for example, is about half the price. you'll pay $600 plus in august for the cove, but the beach tower is $311 on average in

august. and the unique thing is that you share all the same amenities. >> i was going to say. >> you share the 26 acre water park, the swim with the dolphins, the host of wonderful restaurants they have there. you can rub shoulders with celebrities in this destination. for a much less price. >> who stays in the room the whole time anyway, right? >> exactly. >> how about new york city. not a beach des nation, but it's a great place for summer getaways. i know the begunsport is a hotspot. we had our 15th anniversary party. >> it's a hotspot for celebrities just to hang out and stay there, and it's typically a pretty pricey property located in the meatpacking district, a fashionable area. you could pay up to $500, $600 a night depending which weekend you go. the other one to consider is ace hotel. this is on 29th street. it's more of a boutique property. it has a kind of urban retro feel to it. a lot of unique art in there and they have a really cool lobby, a

great bar that is ajoined to the property. you're fwog pay sometimes under $200 a night. >> nice. >> that's fabulous for a new york hotel. right now for august it's -- dpenlding on the weekend you can find really great price there's. >> check it out on orbits. thank you so much. >> thank you. coming up, taking stock of the credit rating crisis. how will the markets react and how will that downgrade affect your wallet? we'll take a look on msnbc saturday. ease of cooking is very important to me. perdue perfect portions is great on busy nights. five chicken breasts individually wrapped, so you can use what you want and put the rest in the refrigerator. and the best part is it only takes 10 minutes. it's my go-to meal. meet pnc virtual wallet. it comes with a calendar

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at half past the hour, we continue breaking news off afghanistan here where our senior administration official says 31 u.s. special operations forces and seven afghan soldiers have died after a nato helicopter crashed during an

overnight operation in the tangi valley. it happened just west of kabul. this is the worst single day losses of life for coalition troops in afghanistan since the war began. joining me now retired army colonel and msnbc analyst jack jacobs. another good morning to you, colonel. as we talk about this, official explanations are not forthcoming yet. why not? >> they have to conduct an investigation, and in particular, if special operations forces are the casualties, it's going to take a lot longer for the information to be released by the government than try to keep as much of that secret as possible. >> would it stand to region from what you know about this region and the kind of operation that was described, would there have been special operations forces on board that helicopter? >> yes. as a matter of fact, the loppinger we stay in afghanistan and we are withdrawing conventional troops, and wear leaving behind special operations forces. in fact, the large majority of

enemy killed in action have been not the result of conventional forces, but these very types of forces who were involved in this particular action, so it's special operations forces like this that are going to be involved in the operations. >> what might be an operation they would be conducting, and describe what their directive would have been. >> a typical operation for a s.e.a.l. team, for example, or a ranger platoon would be a raid in which a target is specifically identified. there are people there we want. there is information there we want, or there's a specific location we want to get into from which we can get further information. a raid will be conducted. usually it's by helicopter instead of by infiltration. sometimes the helicopter brings them right on the objective. extremely dangerous, but very effective if it works. >> if that were the case here, the taliban claiming to have used a rocket propelled grenade launcher to do all of this. >> yeah. could happen. when you are coming in by

helicopter, you are coming in low and slow at some juncture. you're going to be -- your troops are going to be repelling out to the objective or your action is going to land, and the helicopter has zero velocity. it's very easy to shoot it down. likely this is what happened, and although it seems unlikely that you could knock out a helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, which was originally designed to take out tanks, it's very easy to do. in fact, i was in the helicopter in vietnam that was knocked down with a rocket-propelled grenade. although they can use shoulder-launched surface to air missiled, lots of which we gave to the bad guys during the war they had against russia. >> colonel jab jacobs, thank you for weighing in. >> you're welcome. republicans and democrats are blaming each other. standard & poor's, one of the three major credit rating agencies, knocked the u.s. rating down a notch from triple-a to double a plus, citing washington's inability to work together to address its debt. we also learned yesterday that the unemployment rate dipped slightly to 9.1% as the economy

added 117,000 jobs last month. those numbers only tell part of the story. nbc's john yang joins us live with more on that in the studio. how about analysts in terms of what they're saying about this latest jobs report? >> well, alex, those numbers were better than expected. most people expected fewer jobs added and expected the unemployment rate to stay the same. at the same time those numbers show that the jobs recovery, the jobs market really has not yet gotten any kind of traction. >> in washington president obama celebrated the strongest jobs report in four months, but he also acknowledged the more than 20 million americans who can't find full-time jobs. >> we are going to get through this. things will get better. we're going to get there together. >> analysts say getting there could take time. >> you just move forwards. one minute we get a good strong patch going, and then something brings us down. >> among july's bright spots?

retailers who added 26,000 jobs as foreign tourists are drawn by the cheap dollar. and manufacturing, again, showed strength creating 24,000 new jobs for a teelgts of 289,000 new hires since december 2009 when the recession was hitting hardest. in chicago a 90-year-old maker of store displays is hiring again. the company is currently in the market for experienced machine operateors, but fourth generation owner susan mcdonald says she's having a hard time finding them. >> we are running ads in three newspapers and on craig's list. we've had very few applications or resumes. >> wyatt was hired in april after an eight-month job search. >> they're looking for someone right away, and i happened to be there when they needed me, so they hired me right away. >> reporter: for every new

worker like him, there are many more still looking for work. analysts say their numbers could increase as troubles in the financial industry point to looming layoffs. >> it's the toughest jobs recovery in the post war period without a doubt. >> and there are no signs that it's likely to get any better any time soon. >> of course, the job layoffs will continue to add to the problems, and as the economists say, this is not iffing to get better any time soon. >> okay. thank you very much, john yang for that. of course, with these latest job numbers and credit down, there is a lot of speculation right now about whether the u.s. is entering a double dip recession. >> where he starting a double dip recession in your mind?

>> we are at risk of one. i don't think the evidence is there that we're actually -- the economy is contracting at this point, but some of the numbers we've seen, the economy grew at a 1% pace. it might be better than the second half, but not that much better. so that leaves uz vulnerable to any kind of shock that comes along and could send us reeling and back to an economic contraction. >> on the heels of shock and reeling there with regard to the dow, we look at the stock market. all over the place. it was certainly down this week. dow 5.8% down. nasdaq 8.1% down. s&p down 7.2%. >> yeah. >> how does all of this affect the every day person? >> when you see the headlines, it's a couple trillion dollars in the second day. the knee jerk reaction is to panic and sell everything. that's what you don't want to do. however, in this environment cash is obviously king. you might want to shore up your cash position. you might want to look at the dividend paying stocks. it's really all about preservation of capital at this point. >> i'm looking at you in terms of where is this economy heading? >> i would tend to agree with neil that we are at risk of a double dip recession. given both the external risks

that we face, slowing growth around the world, china is raising interest rates, india is raising interest rates. europe is going through a debt crisis. we just as we well know got downgraded by s&p which could complicate market behavior, and there is this wealth effect, alex, when the stock market goes down. people feel less wealthy because they see it on tv all day long. it's like a running scoreboard for your own pocketbook or wallet. we're at risk. whether or not anything is done to counter act the he was of the potential down draft in the economy, it remains to be seen, but the risk has been going up markedly in the last several days and weeks. >> we put out a question on twitter to all the viewers about what their greatest concern is about this credit rating downgrade. i want to go through some of them with you. neil, i'll begin with a response from cm sergeant davis who asks this. how about l the downgrade affect those of us with current mortgage interest rates we've had for years. >> sunt affect you if you have an existing mormg. the risk is not for existing mortgages. the risk is for people taking out new mortgages. if rates rise across the board,

that would be -- make it more expensive to buy a house if that were to happen. >> from this point going forward, ron here's a twitter response from bathped who writes it may discourage foreign investors to invest in the su sa. that may have long lasting effects of unemployment. can you put those two together? does he have a point? >> you can't -- if there were a buyer strike here. if china not only stopped buying u.s. treasuries, japan stopped, other countries stopped buying u.s. treasuries and started. you could see an interest rate spike. if we see an interest rate spike, that will weaken an already soft economy that, as neil suggested, is to the tottering on the brink of recession again, and that would lead to higher unemployment. this can cut a lot of ways. if you get the expected or conventional response from the downgrade that rates go up, it also is a burden on the government to pay its bills and creates all sorts of complications that can deepen a recession. >> before i get to another tweet that i want to go through you with you, vera, you and i were

talking about the concept of raising revenue as being something that couldn't be done. you talked about the simpson bolles item on the agenda that were congress to vote on that, you talk about this is all during the commercial guys. we were talking brsh i wanted you to agree with me. >> inside joke. >> bring this up to the viewers. there would be a way to raise revenues without raising taxes according to the report. >> absolutely. this is critical. this is where the tea party is. i've called them lately faux-conomists get it wrong rsh they talk about bringing down overall tax rates. they say three tax rates. >> young revenue. >> on tax rates. >> so you have let's say a five, 15, and 25% bracket. you eliminate all deductions. you eliminate the deductions for home interest rate mortgages, for state taxes. those are called tax expenditures. if you take those what are

really spending programs out, you would save $1 trillion a year. at the same time by engaging in tax reform, the argument is you would broaden the tax base and actually raise revenue for the federal government without explicitly raising taxes, which tea party conservatives are vihamently opposed to. >> food for thought for everyone out there. as we get to you, vera, with the last tweet for this hour. you find is, right in my biggest worry interest rates will rise injuring the ability for businesses to create jobs. >> that's an interesting point. companies have been significant on record stockpiles of cash, and they've been reluctant to hire for any number of reasons from policy issues to regulation, to taxes, all sorts of issues. this would just be yet another excuse. they would say, we can't add to the head count, which is discouraging news for the 14 million americans who are currently out of work. >> vera gibbons, ron insana, and our birthday boy neil irwin. there is at least something to celebrate. how is that? >> thank you all. coming up in just a few minutes, we're going to see how the u.s. credit rating downgrade

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terrifying moments last night. a line driver in the colorado rockies pitcher right there hit in the head. he laid on the ground for about six minutes before he was carted away. he went to the hospital. the team says he is resting comfortably. he is, though, undergoing tests. we'll bring you updates on his status. hope he is okay. meantime, no relief in sight as another weekend of extreme heat is on the way for this country. record highs are possible in several states as temperatures are expected to rides well above 100 degrees. on this anniversary of lucille ball's birthday, we're going to meteorologist bill karins with this. you got some splaining to do.

>> i can't do the accent very well. good times, though. let's talk about what's happening. two of these going on today. the heat, of course. then, of course, the other thing when emily died. well, emily is trying to come back to life. tropical storm emily is possible by the end of the day. look at the bright red colors. pretty close to south florida too. i think your clouds and south florida, and your chance of showers and thunderstorms increases this afternoon. we're not alarm thissed could develop and be a big deal. it's one of the hottest summers on record in so many locations. indianapolis has had a streak that you've never had before. 24 days in a row of 90 plus, and then in dallas, we're at 35 days in a row of 100 plus. make today 36. you're going to be 107 in dallas, and the heat in the southeast.

there's not many exceptions. we have a lot of rain out there this morning. all through the great lakes, all those little lows or weak storms that are spreading some rain. we have rain in the middle especially there and some outside of st. louis and pennsylvania. sxwra. >> they wouldn't care about being wet and sticky. >> this looks like a story we could deal with for a long time. >> sorry to hear that. bill karins, many thanks. sdmrirchlg well, the big story around the world this morning is the bad news of the u.s. credit downgrade. another setback for an already struggling global economy as experts say the step down from triple-a credit rating could lead to losses for countries that hold u.s. debt. nbc's martin fletcher is in london with the very latest on the world reaction. good saturday morning to you, martin.

>> hi, good morning. well, it is saturday, of course, and the stock markets don't open until monday, and that's a good thing, too. shock waves through europe. although the downgrading wasn't too unexpected. the italian prime minister, silvio berlusconi says finance ministers from the g-7 would meet in just a few days to seek a common plan of action, and in china which holds about $1.2 trillion in u.s. debt, the new china news agency, china's official voice, said today that america should "live within its means." japan had a bit kinder reaction. its trust in the u.s. treasury remains unchanged. trying to calm the markets, in doubt. australia, south korea, they also warned against overreacting to the downgrade. monday will be the day of reckoning for the american dollar which could face strong selling pressure. >> we'll be watching it very closely starting this time tomorrow, getting the indication from there. martin fletcher in london.

thank you for that. sdmrirchlg the whereabouts of casey anthony may be uncertain, but there's a battle in florida to bring her back to the sunshine state. that is a legal mess, and it is next on msnbc saturday. well i always worry about what's in the food that i put on my children's plate. that's why we use all-white meat, breading that is whole grain with omega-3

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four british campers recovering from surgery after being attacked by a polar bear yesterday. the poll polar bear killed a 17-year-old boy. two moderate injuries, two severely injured. it entered a camp of safety soviet in a were staying there. they're hoping to be transferred to a hospital as soon as possible. and the casey anthony drama is, "a mess" says the judge. he needs more time to research whether casey should return to orlando for a check fraud conviction. she disappeared from the public eye after being acquitted in the death of her 2-year-old daughter

caylee. joining me, former prosecutor karen desoto. good morning to you. >> hi, alex. >> what is this about? she was convicted on this in january of last year, the fraud? >> she spent 1,042 days in jail. on 412 she pled guilty to check fraud, felony counts, actually the only felonies to date she actually pled guilty to and is guilty of. the judge gave her time served and one year probation. now, the proefrs controversy ise fact on the order he forgot to put once released. she served her one-year probation during those other two years she spent in jail and saying she completed -- her attorney is saying she completed it. had a letter saying you successfully completed your probation. >> i'm curious where she got that letter? >> from the probation letter. they sent to it to her while in

prison. >> do you think the probation department do they know where she is? >> yes. upon release you have to say we're you're going. they want to know where you're going to go. most people getting out of jail usually go on pa rolrole. she didn't. columbus, ohio. apparently, which is, somebody has to explain to me why she didn't leave the country, but apparently shopping in a gap in columbus, ohio. >> now, these clamoring for her to come back and face this and deal with those in orlando, as a criminal defense attorney you defended people who probably had a hit put on out them or make horrible threats against them. does she legitimately face angry mob reaction were she to return to orlando? >> absolutely. people are so entrenched in their views is of casey anthony. it was still a 2-year-old that was murdered or died tragically, and people think that she's culpable.

that's why people want her to come back to orlando and face the music. they're so angry about that case they want something to happen to her. >> almost like the o.j. case reaction? >> exactly. >> convicted and serving time on burglary because they don't like him. >> and that happened. the judge didn't like them, threw the book at them and they spent maybe a couple more years in jail simply because the judge just didn't like them. casey anthony got a letter saying she completed the probation. first of all, who does probation in jail? that's strange to me. one of the terms of probation, you can't be around felons. well, you know, jail. hello? exactly. they're everywhere. probation is supposed to be in lieu of jail. she spent 1,042 days. obviously, credit for time served and a letter, you completed, good luck to you in future endeavors. that's weighty as far as considering whether or not she should come back and do the probation.

she already spent 2 1/2 years in jail. shep was acquitted, found not guilty. you know what? better for people to go free than one innocent person to be in jail. that's our justice system. people may think she's culpable and got away with it, but, hey, that happens in our system. sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. should somebody spend three years in jail for writing a bad check? seems excessive. >> karen desoto. thanks for making the case. appreciate that. more reaction and analysis about the u.s. credit rating downgrade and how that will affect your wallet. it's likely to an impact on the battle for the white house. some people who want to change their address to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. you're watching "msnbc saturday." with the blow dryer and the flat iron until i see smoke. so pantene said, "breakage and split ends? no problem." they gave me this pantene called breakage to strength. [ female announcer ] the keratin protection pro-v system

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stellar no more for the first time in u.s. history the country's credit rating is