With Britain set to lose its AAA credit rating , there are fears that the United States could go the same way.

Bill Gross, the co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. has told Bloomberg that the US is likely to suffer the same fate as its budget deficit keeps growing. Gross said: ""Both the U.K. and the U.S. have prospective deficits of 10 percent annually as far as the eye can see. At some point over the next several years the debt of each may approach 100 percent of GDP, which is a level at which country downgrades tend to occur."

Despite the warning, President Obama has played down the prospect of a likely downgrade as the budget deficit continues to build. The problem for the US is that tax receipts are drying up at a time when the financial crisis is putting pressure on governments around the world for stimulus spending.

And of course, the perverse irony is that the US is running up a budget deficit to save the financial firms that had been given AAA ratings by those same ratings agencies.