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Ask HN: What should I do with WhatIsTheUSCreditRating.com?

by travisfischer on 8/6/11, 7:10 PM with 8 comments

Hey HN,

Yesterday I bought the domain http://whatistheuscreditrating.com because I had big dreams of making it go viral. My initial attempt at putting together a joke site didn't go anywhere last night. So now I'm thinking I would like to use the domain for truly educational purposes and try and contribute in some small way to getting people informed on the United State's financial situation and what can be done about it. I have some ideas but I'm looking for some additional ideas on what could be done with a domain like this.

Obviously the financial problem is a huge one and decisions need to be made from the top down but I still believe there must be things that we as citizens can do to work towards a long term solution.

I'll take the feedback I get and try and put something simple together tomorrow.

Thanks

  • by bgraves on 8/6/11, 8:10 PM

    * Do your best to summarize the implications of the US downgrade on Friday.

    * Maybe put together a quick video for easy sharing.

    * Use the free $80 AdWords gift certificate to run a 5-day , high-CPC campaign (strike while the iron is hot).

    * Put up AdSense for a small amount of income and put links to your main site or other projects to take advantage of the traffic.

    I'm no expert in finance, but take a look at some relevant KhanAcademy videos [1],[2],[3]

    [1] http://www.khanacademy.org/video/treasury-bond-prices-and-yi...

    [2] http://www.khanacademy.org/video/banking-12---treasuries--go...

    [3] http://www.khanacademy.org/video/american-chinese-debt-loop?...

  • by veyron on 8/7/11, 1:09 AM

    I think that's misleading. There are 3 agencies, and only one of them felt that the US debt wasn't the highest investment grade status.

    Maybe you should mention that, as well as what the credit ratings are (S&P, Moody's, Fitch), what goes into the decision, and how it affects normal people. Start with a reliable wellspring of information. Then I could send it to some of my friends who ask me about the whole situation.

    Then put some ads :)

  • by matdwyer on 8/6/11, 7:22 PM

    Write the entire site in Mandarin Chinese

    (I kid, I kid)

  • by andrewpi on 8/6/11, 8:18 PM

    Maybe post the ratings from the other relevant agencies as well? The US is still rated AAA by several other nationally recognized credit rating agencies.