News Italy Credit rating cut

[mr.Blacky]

Politically motivated lol.

Also, standard and poors, moodys and fitch all misrated the bad debt bonds in 2007, every single one.

Whats your specific criticism of Moodys that doesn't apply to S&P and Fitch?

I am not saying that all of them are just as bad but you talk about bad debts When did the banking crises erupt? and you would have thought they would have learned from it..

from Reuters just recently:
The three leading ratings firms -- Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's -- have been criticized for fueling the financial crisis by assigning and maintaining high ratings on mortgage-backed securities, even as concerns about the health of the U.S. home market grew.

And yet for Euro bashing you want to believe them? The high rating of the US is another issue that I have. It got dropped because of the budget. The rating agencies wanted a bigger drop in spending and no higher taxes, if that is not political then I do not know.

To quote one believer in the rating agencies:

America has had its problems but nothing like what happened in China just 60 years ago, and let's be frank China still hasn't settled into the stable political and social situation most developed nations have. China could easily experience a violent political revolution in the future, where old government obligations could be up in the air, whereas most major developed countries are probably past this political stage.

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yeah right..

how can things like "political stability", "willingness to pay", and "good history" be objectively quantified? Even so, what weighting should be used for each of these factors in calculating the grand total risk?

 

[Ch3tan]

But the are right on the Euro... the Eurozone is over as it is, if they'd just stuck to their own rules they wouldn't be in this position.

 

[mr.Blacky]

sarcastic I hope? they don't rate currencies.. countries yes.

 

[Wij]

The Pound's origins are sort of based on Roman currency, but not directly. The original silver penny was created as an analog to the Carolingian denarius (Charlemagne) using the same weight of silver as the Frankish coin, and that was in turn lifted from the original Roman system, but used a different silver weight.

NB. "Pound" doesn't come from latin, it comes from the German "punda". Dollars also come from the German Taler/Thaler.

I blame Neal Stephenson, The System of The World got me interested in the history of money and banking and I read up on all this stuff a few years ago.

Oi. Until now I was the only person to have used the word Carolingian on these forums

gerrof moi laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrnd