The research shows that profit may influence credit rankings after a government panel described the rating companies as “key enablers of the financial meltdown” in 2008.
No. You don’t say!
Credit-rating companies routinely award higher rankings to debt issued by banks and corporations that pay them the most, a conflict of interest that may escape Congressional efforts to change the way they do business.
Bonds from countries and cities that pay about half as much as issuers of less creditworthy debt are “rated more harshly,” according to a study by scholars at Indiana University in Bloomington, Washington, D.C.-based American University and Rice University in Houston.
On the other hand, freedom of speech means money talks and the rest get rated BB-.
Wait till Peter Wallison finds out about this. I’m sure he’ll uncover evidence how poor people with CRA mortgages bribed, err, paid S&P & Moody’s to rate their mortgage pools AAAA for Awesome Awesome Awesome!
I’m sure, though, that corporate media will cover this corruption with the same vigor as they covered fake scandals like birth certificates, Solyndra etc.
