"It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it" http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-last-mystery-of-the-financial-crisis-154447818.html
What a piece of history! At the time that transpired we were already used to the idea that ratings from brokerage analysts were bunk. Seemingly, nobody was suspecting that Moody's and S&P were no better. WSJ editorials are still telling us that deregulation is a good thing of course.
Rating agencies shouldn't even exist. Investors should do their own independent smell test rather than blindly following AAA. I hope we're in the calm before the real storm and the next crisis completely obliterates these motherfuckers and anyone that blindly follow their rankings.
I agree. Ratings agencies do little but to freak out investors or make them go all in on bad stocks. The problem is that the average investor just looks and says âoh, Moodyâs thinks the stock will rise 50% this year, I should buyâ. They donât learn to read the financials, learn what goes into the market, and so on. Itâs the biggest legal scam towards uninformed regular investors.