Todo apunta a un oportunismo por el que parece que la agencia quiera corregir el embrionario optimismo de los mercados, más que servirles de referencia objetiva.
“Everything points to an opportunism through which the agency wishes to correct the embryonic optimism of the markets rather provide an objective assessment”
The Anglosphere is playing with fire by deployment its rating agencies in this overtly political manner. At least, let’s hope so, let’s hope that the Eurozone can respond adequately to this undeclared economic war. The empire is on the offensive everywhere in what looks like a desperate last stand. Can blowback be far behind.
La rebaja de la calificación a la deuda soberana de nueve países europeos -España, Francia e Italia entre ellos- que la agencia Standard & Poor’s anunció anoche constituye una enmienda a la totalidad de la eurozona. O bien pasará factura a la agencia o bien deberá provocar cambios en la política económica dominante en la Unión Europea. Su preanuncio tuvo efectos ambivalentes: una rebaja en la cotización del euro y el mantenimiento de las Bolsas continentales.
Hans Michelbach, a member of parliament for the conservative Christian Social Union party, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats, called the S&P warning “an arbitrary decision with no relation to reality.” The aim of the announcement, he said, had evidently been to create additional nervousness ahead of the EU summit. He called on the EU to crack down on the “uncontrolled games” being played by the ratings agencies.
As the UK and US economies disintegrate they continue their campaign to undermine the euro and despite overwhelming, irremedial indebtedness continue to benefit from the indulgence of the rating agencies which are controlled by Wall Street/City of London interests
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has piled pressure on EU leaders to come up with a deal to save the euro at their summit on Thursday, warning that it may downgrade 15 of 17 euro-zone countries — including powerhouse Germany. EU politicians have criticized the agency’s statement, and are particularly unhappy about its timing.
Who could doubt that we live in a world where political power overrides economics. So it transpires that the fact that the US is manifestly incapable of dealing with its debt problem has no real significance- all the focus remains on the euro. The rating agencies and the world’s media obligingly agree to overlook America’s problems.
Rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s said on Monday there will no immediate downgrade of their credit ratings on the United States due to the failure of a congressional “super committee” to reach an agreement on debt reduction.
The need to reform multilateral credit bodies, particularly the International Monetary Fund, was highlighted at the UN on Tuesday by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez.
The criminality of these agencies was already well in evidence with their fraudulent granting of AAA status to subprime securities. Their bias against Europe is also perfectly evident as no matter what they do european bonds are downgraded while the US and UK magically retain their AAA status despite being obvious basket cases in complete economic, social, political and moral disarray.
MILAN, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors have seized documents at the offices of rating agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s in a probe over suspected “anomalous” fluctuations in Italian share prices, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
The United States has narrowly avoided default after both House and Senate passed the bill to approve a last-minute raise of the debt ceiling and President Obama signed it into law, just hours before the deadline.
Calls have increased for the creation of a European credit-rating agency after several debt-laden euro-zone economies had their ratings downgraded to “junk” status.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the choir of European leaders calling for the introduction of a European ratings agency and expressed her scepticism over Greek sovereign debt restructuring.
Rating agencies have a great power in their hands. Many investors rely on their conclusions when evaluating risks in securities. Attracting money is much more expensive for the borrowers with low ratings. The banks around the world, if the “quality” of bonds in their portfolios is reduced, have to create additional reserves, writes finmarket.ru.
In a note today, Dublin stockbrokers Bloxham said Moody’s decision would force some investors who were permitted to hold non investment-grade status stock to sell.
“In our view this latest move by Moody’s is cynical and manipulative coming just two days before the EU/IMF in their latest quarterly review are expected to give Ireland the thumbs up in meeting all its bailout targets,” it said.
It defies belief that the rating agencies continue to exercise this arbitrary power: an appropriate response would be to arrest them for their role in fraudulently giving AAA rating to junk securities being dumped on Europe.
Ireland’s economic recovery damaged by downgrade, says government
In These New Times 