Word: crediteers
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Last July, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put out a report detailing how the major credit-ratings agencies abetted the subprime-mortgage meltdown. By wildly overestimating the quality of the dicey securities that Wall Street was churning out, the ratings firms helped investors load up on those securities - the same ones that are now, in many cases, near-worthless and clogging up the financial system. Plenty of people at the ratings agencies were aware of trouble brewing. In December 2006, a manager at Standard & Poor's e-mailed a colleague: "Let's hope we are all retired and wealthy...
...fact, the SEC proposed a version of that in July. The agency suggested changing a number of its ratings-based regulations since the use of the NRSRO designation "may have encouraged investors to place undue reliance on the credit ratings issued by these entities." One example: money market mutual funds, which are currently only allowed to hold high-grade paper. High-grade - as defined by the ratings agencies. In comments responding to the proposed rule change, sellers of money market funds balked at the idea of not being able to use the ratings agencies' opinions...
...government says that Detroit is a "strategic" part of the economy. Saving The Big Three is as important as keeping the nation's large banks operating to maintain the flow of credit. But, the comparison is bogus. As John McCain, a military man much of his life, liked to point out to the President during the election, there is a difference between strategy and tactics. There is nothing strategic about Detroit. Over 50% of the cars sold in the U.S. are made by foreign companies. There is no reason that the number cannot go to 80%. It serves the national...
Second, Geithner said the still-nascent Federal Reserve program launched last week to restart non-bank commercial lending [i.e., by helping investors buy securities backed by auto loans, credit card debt, etc.] would be expanded to provide funding for investors who want to buy certain kinds of mortgage-backed securities. The government's enthusiasm for the starter plan, known as "TALF," has outstripped market enthusiasm, but there is some life in it. The Federal Reserve has put up over a $1 trillion in potential lending already, though only $9 billion in deals have been done so far. Geithner...
...disprove completely and some evidence is persuasive - at dawn on the summer solstice, for example, the center of the Stonehenge ring, two nearby stones (The Slaughter and Heel Stones) and the sun all seem to align. Still, critics of Hawkins' theory say he gives the ancient builders too much credit, arguing they wouldn't have had the sophistication or precision necessary to predict all the astrological events Hawkins' ascribes to his Stonehenge calendar. And plus this is England after all - wet, overcast England. The climate may have prevented the ancient people of Stonehenge from even seeing the sky with regularity...