are three countries here, portugal, ireland, and greece that cannot pay their bills without the help offa bailout. and the situation has grown so bad that just an hour ago, new measures were announced to help this country, italy, stem off any more problems. we'll see if that has an effect on worldwide markets as well tomorrow. carl, back to you. >> problems on both sides of the atlantic tonight. steve, does this downgrade from s&p hit americans' pocketbooks at home or not? >> there's plenty of confusion and concern about that, carl. we've never been in a situation where the world's benchmark debt, the united states, has been downgraded. so anybody who claims to know what they're talking about here probably is making it up. there is concern, though, about interest rates, mortgage interest rates, credit card interest rates, some concern it may go up. but i will tell you, plenty of speculation that the market anticipated this and it will digest this latest bad news with pretty good evenness. >>> michelle and steve, thanks. >>> and there will be special coverage tonight on the markets beginni