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A comment from a link I posted on facebook concerning this subject:
"The US Justice Dep't is investigating S&P's triple-A rating to the already-failed sub-prime mortgages that were repacked and sold around the world as "safe" investments. The article states: "According to people with knowledge of the interviews, the Justice Department has been asking about instances in which the company’s analysts wanted to award lower ratings on mortgage bonds but may have been overruled by other S&P business managers." May have been overrruled? "If the government finds enough evidence to support a case, it could undercut S&P’s longstanding claim that its analysts act independently from business concerns." < http://www.facebook.com/l/AAQBdT4Gr/www....rade-aaa-rating> To observers from outside the US, this language is way too cautious. What the testimony suggests is that the analysts at S&P were not deceived, but that the company's business managers decided to deceive everyone else. This would be a clear example of fraud deserving prosecution. What is unclear is whether the Justice Dep't has sufficient independence to succeed in making charges stick against the dishonest managers, even if the case is legally solid. S&P not only laughed all the way to the bank in 2008, but also this year they still trade on their "authority" to downgrade the country — and the media obediently engaged in financial fear-mongering, with all the observed effects. If there were any journalists independent of those private interests which control government policy, they'd be asking, "What does S&P gain by lowering the US credit rating?" Has anyone asked that? Or do we have to wait for years, and then after knowing this would make no difference, this might end up as only an academic question of interest to a few lawyers, but never making a dent in the financial system."
See also this article:
Titanic Battle or Insider Trading?