joining us now to discuss the latest on the markets and the economy are liz anne sonders, senior vice president and chief invtment analyst for charles schwab and company, and mohamed el-erian, c.e.o. of pimco, a global investment management firm and the world's largest bond fund. liz anne saunders, i'll started with you. what happened a week ago to start this market, all the jitters? >> well, i think the market's had its eyes on several things. clearly the debt ceiling debate was a big factor, and i think that weakened some confidence, but in addition, last week we got the beginning of what was a string of fairly weak economic readings. first primary one was the gdp, gross domestic product report for the second quarter, which was weaker than expected, 1.3%, but prior quarter was revised down quite a bit barely into growth territory, .4%. they not only did, that but they went back and they revised the entire recession period such that we now know that the decline in the economy during the recession was a little bit more than 5% as opposed to only a little bit more than 4%. and finally,

. >>> for more on the economy liz ann sonders, chief investment strategist for charles schwab.t seemed like the market in the last several days has blown right by the prospects of the debt deal and focused on the discouraging news. >> you could argue that had been something that the market had one eye on already. because you've had eight days of a downturn. the gdp report was quite weak and revisions. and as far back as the entire period of the recession. i think most have felt that the recession was more severe than what the numbers suggested and this confirmed that. >> yesterday we also saw the ratings agencies come out. moody's and fitch say they're going to maintain america's aaa rating for now. how much difference would it make if they did indeed downgrade the u.s. credit rating? >> once the plans of the deal were laid out and we knew there would be this formation of a special committee that would have until november, the thought was that would give the ratings agency a little bit of breathing room. again, we're on negative watch. i think there's still likelihood they'll d