Re:The horrifying AAA debt-issuance chart
by gaius on Saturday July 16, 2011 @03:15AM
(#2770310)
There's nothing rent-seeking about it; anyone can start a ratings agency. All Moody's et al have is what we would now call "mindshare" . It's no more rent seeking than say the Met Office having a monopoly on weather forecasting...
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Re:The horrifying AAA debt-issuance chart
by pessimizer on Saturday July 16, 2011 @05:52PM
(#2771899)
It's more than mindshare, it's also the fact that the ratings given by NRSROs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_Recognized_Statistic... ) are often written into statutes. There are many massive funds that are restricted by legislation from investing money somewhere that Moody's has rated at lower than X, X often being AAA.