I haven't turned the television on in a while, I didn't realize real people are blaming S & P for

[RB TexLa]

issuing a rating. I wasn't surprised at internet message board "journalists" but I had no idea that real people are doing this. That's insane.

[BanzaiBonnie]

1. Standard and Poors lacks credibility

After their assisance to Wall Street in the mortgage debacle.

[RB TexLa]

2. No, not really

[TheDebbieDee]

6. Yes, really, S&P does lack credibility!

S&P gave solid ratings to the marketers of those fradulent mortgage bundles of the 2008. Some companies invested in those phony mortgage based on the glowing ratings bestowed by S&P.

[RB TexLa]

7. You don't have to trust them, you can go by Moody's or Finch Ratings

but they still are regarded as the most credible ratings firm.

[TheDebbieDee]

9. Lacking credibility means that no one trusts S&P anymore.........

I'm not understanding what it is that we're disagreeing about RB TexLa.

[RB TexLa]

10. They are very trusted. That's what we disagree about. Where do you get the idea that

they are not trusted?

[jpgray]

3. Do you know how they rate sovereign debt?

Neither do they. They rate securities by collecting fees to run the banks' own risk models. What's their process and track record for rating sovereign debt, in your view? What gave Lehman an A rating for so long, do you think? After their downgrade of Japan, it was a shame no one wanted to let Japan borrow, no?

[tjwash]

4. Yep...

S&P were the ones that bundled up mortgage backed securities during the housing bubble, and gave them a AAA ratings just so they would have an easier time dumping them off to Europe and China. Remember when they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar doing it, with those emails referring to them as "toxic assets?"

However...this correction was actually inevitable, and has been a long time coming. The downgrade aside...they should have just let the banks that were "too big to" fail back in 2007, instead of just handing them close to a trillion dollars. Turns out the banks did exactly what all of us were saying they would do back then--put just enough of it in to stop a hard crash, piss the rest of of it away as bonuses, and get the fuck out of Dodge.

[EFerrari]

5. They issued Lehman a AAA rating just before they went belly up.

Real people really think they are full of cr@P.

[lynne]

8. But I bet -

- that if they hadn't downgraded and had issued an AAA rating instead, we'd be in love with them right now.

Killing the messenger, IMO.