NCAAbbs

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77244.html


WASHINGTON -- As the housing market collapsed in late 2007, Moody's Investors Service, whose investment ratings were widely trusted, responded by purging analysts and executives who warned of trouble and promoting those who helped Wall Street plunge the country into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

A McClatchy investigation has found that Moody's punished executives who questioned why the company was risking its reputation by putting its profits ahead of providing trustworthy ratings for investment offerings.

Instead, Moody's promoted executives who headed its "structured finance" division, which assisted Wall Street in packaging loans into securities for sale to investors. It also stacked its compliance department with the people who awarded the highest ratings to pools of mortgages that soon were downgraded to junk. Such products have another name now: "toxic assets."

~more, click the link.



Good read.

(10-18-2009 11:05 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote: [ -> ]http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77244.html


WASHINGTON -- As the housing market collapsed in late 2007, Moody's Investors Service, whose investment ratings were widely trusted, responded by purging analysts and executives who warned of trouble and promoting those who helped Wall Street plunge the country into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

A McClatchy investigation has found that Moody's punished executives who questioned why the company was risking its reputation by putting its profits ahead of providing trustworthy ratings for investment offerings.

Instead, Moody's promoted executives who headed its "structured finance" division, which assisted Wall Street in packaging loans into securities for sale to investors. It also stacked its compliance department with the people who awarded the highest ratings to pools of mortgages that soon were downgraded to junk. Such products have another name now: "toxic assets."

~more, click the link.



Good read.

It was two groups of stupid people meeting in the middle which caused it. The dumb bankers who wanted to make easy money off the sub-prime stuff and the dumb people who couldn't say no to the $300k house when they make $60k/year. The government encouraging banks to loosen lending standards didn't help either.

Fannie & Freddie played a large role

Everyone is to blame. Period.

Everyone who is among MY favorite "whipping boys" is to blame. We MUST find a culprit who we can blame so that no one gets the idea that the system itself might be the cause of the problem. It must ALWAYS be some corrupt player of the system who screwed things up, not the system itself.

Of course, if it comes to a system of which I am not a part (and have no stake), then it is alright to find fault with the system itself. By blaming Gen. Short and ADM. Kimmel for the Pearl Harbor disaster, the top brass in Washington kept from being investigated themselves. Like sending a warning of a possible impending Japanese attack by regular Western Union telegram which arrived DURING the attack.