I'll take Thomas Jefferson for 634

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Thomas Jefferson

How does it feel to be financially raped again by Standard & Poor's? The first time was when they over rated mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) along with Morgan Stanley's and Moody's, helping to bring about the over-inflation of the real-estate bubble and its subsequent collapse.[1]

Four years later S&P does it again when they offer their considered opinion about the US Congress' performance when raising the US debt ceiling, by down-grading the United States' credit rating from AAA to AA+. The consequences have been reverberating around the world, resulting in a drop of 634 points on the Dow on yet another Black Monday. And who knows how much lower all the markets will head before this is over, and how many more trillions will be lost. A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.[2]

[1] Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

[2] With apologies to the memory of Senator Everett Dirksen