Moody's Hears it From Banks-WSJ

It is no surprise that Moody’s is hearing it from banks who are trying to protect their credit ratings from downgrades.  Moody’s has constantly been behind the curve and has been truly a destructive force throughout the financial crisis throwing gasoline on fires.  The ratings agencies were an unmitigated disaster rating thousands of securities AAA that are now junk.  Now the banks have basically doubled their capital ratios, shown consistent profits, and improving credit metrics but are at risk for some arbitrary downgrade.  I truly believe we would have more responsible financial markets if we got rid of the existing ratings agencies whom are burdened with too many conflicts of interests and started over.  All ratings should be paid for by buyers of bonds and not issuers, and should not be required if an investor wants to rely on their own analysis.  The ratings agencies put an artificial feeling of safety that is just not justified based on their terrible track records, so if it saves money not to have them at all the investor will understand that they need to do their own research.

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