Credit Rating Agencies, Does Anyone Care
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Cory Fleck provides his opinion on credit rating agencies and the recent downgrade of Canadian banks.
Here is the link to the Wiki page with the Countries credit ratings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_credit_rating
Interesting points, John W.
You still in Florida?
I am in Arizona until tonight. What great weather!
Big Al
Yes, sir, I am…pretty nice weather here too. Glad you had a nice visit.
lol
Does anyone care?
No one will ever care. Unless the USA gets a down grade. Then the late night TV guys will have a field day with the rating agencies…..
Doug Casey is right “The Three Stooges” are back and they are running the world economy, well done boys. Moe do you know that Merv was adjusting The Libor, Libor my shmeebor , don’t you knucleheads ever get it right, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. DT
Can’t disagree with you Machine Gun!
Big Al
I personally agree with Cory, MNH.
We all need to do our own due diligence.
Big Al
Negative GDP in a trillion plus deficit/QE in perpetuity environment….who cares?
Who needs a rating agency to tell you the above story?
They are simply cover to allow institutions and pensions to stuff their portfolio with pre-approved garbage debt.
You sure do bring some sanity into this world Dennis M!
Thanks,
Big Al
P.S. I am serious!
Being sane in a largely insane world requires patients.
I wait for the day when the general public will demand substance in exchange for their talents and labor.
What a wonderful world it will be!
The problem is the path to get their will not be pretty.
The problem is that the public is in no position to demand anything with all the debt it carries. Also, wages will have to fall sharply to deal with the “labor” (people) glut.
Matthew their debt is based in non-standard units.
We need to return to honest weights and Measures.
A day where cheese is not hung up in vacuum sealed plastic….fanned out
Slices to fool the eye there is more there than there really is.
In my real world your pay and your cold cuts would weigh something.
You can call me sentimental but give me 1/2 pound of salami!
Forty years ago, the ratings agencies worked for investors. Today, they work for the institutions that they rate. This is why downgrades always come long after the smart money has effected a downgrade of its own. They are now just tools for the manipulation of the psychology of dumb money — which is, by far, most money.
RT reports the U.S. slips back into receccion, PMs rise, arnt the times when PMs should rise normaly the times they get smashed? Whats wrong this time?
I tend to listen to Fitch, because they are usually way out ahead of S&P and Moody’s. For good or bad, they have the guts (or audacity) to make a rating change earlier than others.
I would not write this off as a publicity stunt, although this announcement may still serve that purpose. Some may recall the re-hypothecation “scandal” implicates many of the big Canadian banks. There is some question as to the overhand of Canadian mortgage debt. I haven’t stayed current on numbers, but friends and family in Canada (Australia is similar) suggest that an interest rate hike, such as with inflation, or a world-bond-bubble collapse, would hit Canadian banks very hard.
That said, I’m still a little bewildered that France maintained it’s AAA longer than the US. I really do think there is showmanship and pay-offs still going on with the really, REALLY big ratings, as Ed Sullivan would have said.