Tuesday, April 19, 2011

How in the world does Standard & Poors (S&P) still have any credibility, at all?

Sorry, this post is not in any way shape or form related to the reprographics business or industry, but …. this is my blog, and I’m going to take this opportunity to rant, even if I’m the only one who ends up reading this post.

Well, for those of you who follow the stock market every day, you’re aware that the market tanked yesterday pretty much because Standard & Poor’s (S&P) one of the “premier” rating agencies, issued a “negative outlook” warning on U.S. debt obligations (U.S. Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, etc.)

And, you know that S&P is one of the credit rating agencies that somehow, some way, managed to pony-up incredibly outrageous “AAA” ratings on the CDO obligations (“collateralized debt obligations) that contained high-risk, junk-level mortgages, one of the reasons why our entire financial system came close to collapsing in 2008 (or, was it 2009, I’m having a memory-recall lapse right at this moment, but, whatever…)

I’m sitting here in my office (the public library) picturing, in my mind, the executive officers of S&P, who probably heavily shorted the markets just before they “issued” the negative outlook warning, sipping on their Pina Colada’s, Margaritas, etc. on the beach in the Cayman Islands ….. sitting there wondering when someone (anyone) will figure out what they are up to and put their asses in jail (or, better yet, do something to these people that would eliminate them from doing the crap they do.)

It is hard to believe that anyone still has any level of trust in the credit rating agencies.

Here’s the intro to an article that appeared on ABCnews.go.com, this afternoon…..

"S&P's Credibility Under Fire As Agency Issues US Debt Warning; Bipartisan Senate Report Cited S&P for Enabling US Mortgage Meltdown"

Standard & Poor's sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Washington when it lowered its outlook on U.S. federal debt to "negative," but the credit-rating agency's own credibility has recently been called into question.

Here’s a link to the full article:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B81al4kFAU9JOTZlOWI1NDMtZDkxZi00ODM4LWI2MTItOWVlNjdkNDkyMzIy&hl=en&authkey=CM6c3gk

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