[Bloomberg, 2008]
"I view the ratings agencies as one of the key culprits," says Joseph Stiglitz, 65, the Nobel laureate economist at Columbia University in New York. "They were the party that performed that alchemy that converted the securities from F- rated to A-rated. The banks could not have done what they did without the complicity of the ratings agencies."
The rating companies earned as much as three times more for grading complex structured finance products, such as CDOs, as they did from corporate bonds. Through 2007, they had record revenue, profits and share prices.Naked Capitalism:
S&P has published criteria for sovereign ratings, but they are still vague and inconsistently applied. And no wonder. They aren’t paid to provide these ratings, and accordingly understaff the activity.Police Raid Milan Offices of Moody's and Standard & Poor's
[Guardian]
As stock and bond markets across the world tumbled on fears about Italy and Spain, it emerged that police acting on orders from prosecutors had raided the Milan offices of rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's as part of continuing investigations into their role in the recent financial turmoil.
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