yer full of crap. The scumbags on Wall St knew the ratings agencies were full of it. How could they not. Ratings is for grandma and so the broker doesnt get sued when your stinking bond defaults.
of course - banks are there to protect you from the rating agencies...is this what you say? who asked for deals to be rated? Banks? No! The client/regulator did! In most instances he knew he was buying crap - but as long as it was AAA and gave him an excess spread so that he could go and buy 2 bigmac meals instead of 1 he was happy. do you see a pattern here? banks are not your shrink - they want to make money on facilitating the deal which - from the credit risk perspective - is evaluated by an "independent" rating agency to avoid the major conflict of interest. it is not their fiduciary duty to stop doing all business when the whole world decides to go nuts. the bottom line is that people are stupid; when they decide to live by the sword they should die by the sword... no excuses! so who fucked up the most?