A single mother-of-two delivered a clear message to finance executives after hiring a pilot to fly over Wall Street today.
'Thanks For The Downgrade: You Should All Be Fired,' read the banner that blazed across the Manhattan skyline - and past Standard and Poor's New York headquarters - this afternoon.
The aerial stunt was commissioned by Lucy Nobbe, of St Louis, Missouri, a vice president with private equities and investment firm Wedbush Morgan Securities who works from her home in Kirkwood.
The flyby - which followed less than a week after the U.S. credit rating was downgraded from AAA to AA+ by S&P - came around lunchtime on Tuesday, when office workers were buzzing about the streets.
American Banker broke news of the sighting via Twitter.
Ms Nobbe initially declined to be named in an interview to protect her own finance job. However, once she saw all the attention the banner was getting, she agreed to be interviewed.
She told KSDK that she was so angry about the way lawmakers argued and bickered over the debt ceiling, that she couldn't get it out of her head and then woke up on Sunday night with the idea.
The 51-year-old said: 'I couldn't believe this happened because they were acting silly and being irresponsible.
I thought that is something that I could do that wouldn't cost a million dollars and maybe someone would listen to me.
She claims she is not the type of person to actively protest or even wave banners, but thought it would be a good example for her daughters Holly, 11, and Jacqueline, 15.
Holly said she is proud of what her mum did. She said: 'She definitely stands up, she is different than other moms, she stands up and I'm really proud of her. I am glad to have a mom like that.
It cost Ms Nobbe $895 to fly the banner around New York but the company she used, flysigns.com, was so impressed with her idea that they gave her a discount.
Ms Nobbe said that she hopes it will be the wake-up call that lawmakers need: 'It feels pretty good, I mean a lot of time I think those things but I don't do it and this time I actually did it. I don't regret it.
Flying the plane over Manhattan wasn't her first choice, however.
'I originally wanted to fly it over Washington, D.C., but learned that you can't do that. So I chose Wall Street instead,' she said.
She also 'didn't specifically intend it to fly over S&P'.
Explaining her conviction, she added: 'I'm just a mother from St Louis who feels the only reason we got downgraded was people in politics.
The New York Observer interviewed a friend of the woman, who urged her to follow-through with the gimmick.
'She called me up to have me talk her out of it, and of course, I didn't, because I think it's funnier than shit,' the friend said, adding that despite her job in finance the woman 'does not have a lot of discretionary cash.
'She's a single mother of two. She's been working and paying taxes since she was 16-years-old,' the friend added.
Matthew Applegate of Aerial Sign North piloted the plane, but could not be reached for comment.
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