Robert Samuelson: The vendetta against S&P - The Washington Post: "Until the bubble burst, few understood what was happening. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently admitted that he was caught off guard by the crisis. But the Obama administration holds S&P to a higher standard. There must be villains, and they must be punished. Someday this case may be settled. But for now S&P is a scapegoat, and the Department of Justice has become the Department of Blame."
Prosecutors subpoenaed millions of pages of S&P emails and other documents and grilled dozens of its employees, yet were unable to produce convincing evidence of a companywide policy to inflate ratings for profit. S&P denies wrongdoing and refuses to settle. S&P's assumptions about the health of the subprime market matched those of the Treasury and Federal Reserve. The agency and the government used similar forecasting models and came to the same rosy conclusions about the real estate assets before they became worthless in 2007 and 2008. (source Investors.com--see below)
Prosecutors subpoenaed millions of pages of S&P emails and other documents and grilled dozens of its employees, yet were unable to produce convincing evidence of a companywide policy to inflate ratings for profit. S&P denies wrongdoing and refuses to settle. S&P's assumptions about the health of the subprime market matched those of the Treasury and Federal Reserve. The agency and the government used similar forecasting models and came to the same rosy conclusions about the real estate assets before they became worthless in 2007 and 2008. (source Investors.com--see below)
Ahead Of New Debt Showdown, Obama Threatens Agency That Downgraded - Investors.com: "Staring at a another debt ceiling crisis, the president's punishing the one credit rating agency that dared downgrade U.S. debt in the last crisis. And Wall Street analysts say the timing's no coincidence. Just weeks away from the next debt-limit showdown, the Justice Department filed a whopping $5 billion lawsuit against Standard & Poor's for alleged fraud. The case appears weak, but the message it sends S&P and the other independent rating agencies is clear: Don't downgrade anymore. "It's a foregone conclusion that no more downgrades will be coming," said Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff. Curiously, Attorney General Eric Holder can't explain why the administration is targeting only S&P in its unprecedented investigation of Wall Street's credit rating industry. S&P's subprime securities ratings were virtually identical to those of Moody's and Fitch, yet the government's singling out S&P for prosecution. The reason seems obvious: Unlike Moody's and Fitch, S&P embarrassed President Obama ahead of his re-election bid by downgrading U.S. debt to AA+ from AAA. . . ." Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/020813-643819-obamas-sandp-lawsuit-political-payback-for-downgrade.htm#ixzz2KQ8SHZnu
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