Standard & Poor’s AKA S&P: Why Do They hold So Much Power?
Thursday, August 11, 2011Posted in: Financial crisis
I’ve woken up this morning to the news that France may be the next country to lose its triple A credit rating, and as a result of nervousness from investors, millions were wiped off the FTSE 100.
I’m not sure why these credit rating agencies are allowed to have so much power? It’s not like they don’t get things wrong, after all. I think they’ve been described as economic terrorists in the past, and I can’t help but agree.
I’m a huge believer that organisations like S&P have too much power, and coupled with the fact that they’re based in the United States leads me to believe that not all of their decisions will be free from political influences.
Fat cats sitting in their shiny offices blithely making decisions that affect people on a day to day basis, without the obligation of looking these same people in the eye? I would bet my mortgage that if somebody was brave enough to launch a secret investigation into their practices, we’d find a level of corruption that’s unprecedented.
I sense that something is rotten in Denmark, but in this case, Denmark happens to be Standard & Poor’s.
Anon 76
August 12
4:47 pm
Ah yes. The Fat Cats want to drop the ratings. Why? Because it generates more interest dollars. And that compiles as every lender must then up the ante.
The huge disparity between interest paid on savings versus interest charged on borrowing is a travesty. And for all the hoopla they spout, they don’t want you to save and spend your money accordingly. Your credit rating drops, you see, because you are an unknown as to whether you will pay this back even if your debt to income ratio can totally handle it.
They have us by the “nads”, and somehow we have to find a way to take them back.