The men who judge the fate of the global economy

The man who holds in his hands the fate of US credit, and with it potentially the global economy, favors small tie knots, sports a bushy mustache and smokes his fair share of cigarettes.

Beyond that, he is a mystery, like the work he does.

You may have never heard of David Beers (seen here) but every finance minister in the world knows of him.

A Wall Street veteran, a graduate of London School of Economics where he has endowed a scholarship in his name, he is the global head of sovereign credit ratings for Standard & Poor's.

It is on his say-so and the committee he oversees that financial markets have been rocked over the last 18 months.

They now await his judgment upon the US debt deal on which will turn borrowing costs all around the world.

Text: Rachelle Younglai and Ana da Costa, Reuters

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