[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I think you’ll find that the ratings agys have language in their service agreements that holds them harmless from damages suffered by folks who rely on their ratings. And if you are a fund mgr & got a rating on a tranche of debt you bought from Yahoo finance, you do NOT have a case for having performed any degree of due dilly. There’s no grounds for lawsuits here, even if you (as a fund mgr) subscribed on a paid basis to Moody’s, etc; for the real inside poop. I don’t even think they have a “Kodak” guarantee, limiting their liability to the price paid for the subscription! (I don’t know this for a fact, but I have on what I consider very good authoritah that there is all manner of “hold harmless” verbiage in the “use” agreements.)

They might be castigated and embarassed by Congress in a dog & pony show where the useless turds running this place yell at a bunch of other useless turds, but that’s about it. Oh yeah, they’ll propose 3-5 bills to tighten regulations on the ratings industry, you know, just in time to be functional, maybe one passes, then we’ll be in nirvana because everything will be fixed all better now the end.

[BobS]

So they want to loosen the accuracy rules of Moody's and S & P? And flood the market with worthless junk bonds? They screwed the pooch already with junk mortages world-wide.

They are going downhill fast.

[B4Ranch]

The part I find strange is had a rating agency chosen to give companies lower scores based on the fact that they traded derivatives, currently known as toxic assets, I am very confident that there would have been a Court ruling forbidding such practice until there had been an extensive study on the matter. By “extensive study” I am referring to a conclusion that was favorable.

[blueheron2]

One rep testified it wasn’t actionable because ratings were only opinion. However, it was also testified that they were knowingly giving false ratings to get business from the rated companies which would mean they were knowingly deceiving investors.