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Moon Kil Woong » Comments » ADP

  • 'AAA' Rated Companies: And Then There Were Six [View article]
    I wish they stopped the arbitrary AAA mystical listing system and just provided their estimated % possible bankruptcy and default rate. That way they could make it uniform with municipal bonds and give more clarity on how accurate they really are.

    After all, lets call a dog a dog shall we, their ratings are issued to determine the risk premiums of these firms debt in percentage terms anyway. They are not some impartial news service commited only to noticing some potential bad things that can happen to a company and providing an early warning balance sheet notification.

    Because ratings agencies are so intertwined by financial self interest to debt issuers you really need some sort of balance. The best thing would be to require them not to take debtholder listing fees. Since that would kill their market cap if not their business, it would also be good if they were beholden to actually put skin in the gaame and make bets at those percentages each time they issue a ratings. I don't think this would happen either because they would probably be bankrupt by now.

    I think everyone knows if the ratings agencies were an animal it would probably be a slug: not backbone, slow as hell, and enjoys eating easy meals on things that don't bite back (overcharging on municipal and revenue bonds).
    Mar 13 22:17 pm |Rating: +3 0 |Link to Comment
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