Europe Declares War On Rating Agencies For Downgrading Portugal

[Monkey]

If you cant say there is a problem then obviously the problem doesnt exist.

[leicestersq]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8621520/Europe-declares-war-on-rating-agencies.html

'A chorus of policy-makers from Europe and across the world have denounced Moody's drastic downgrade of Portuguese debt as an act of financial vandalism, accusing the "Anglo-Saxon" rating agencies of driving states into bankruptcy and destabilising the global system.

Wolfgang Schauble, German finance minister, said there was no justification for the four-notch downgrade or for warnings that Portugal might need a second bail-out. "We must break the oligopoly of the rating agencies," he said.

Heiner Flassbeck, director of the UN Office for World Trade and Development, said the agencies should be "dissolved" before they can do any more damage, or at least banned from rating countries.

Moody's downgrade late on Tuesday set off immediate contagion to Ireland, with dangerous ripple effects across southern Europe. Yields on Irish two-year bonds surged above 15pc of the first time. Italian borrowing costs reached levels not seen since the aftermath of the Lehman crisis in late 2008. Yields on Spain's 10-year bonds jumped 12 basis points to 5.59pc. '

the only thing the ratings agencies need is some zanu luvvin' from uncle bob.shame they couldn't have been more honest about the banks pre lehamn but better late than never.imasgine,telling folk that greece and portugal is struggling.what are they on?

Hey Pedro, still sure Spain will pop before Italy?

My horse is starting to pick up speed.

[Pauly_Boy]

Europe has a point, it's a deliberate act! If the rating agencies were worth their time, they'd seen the crisis coming, but they didn't; hence there views snd analysis are as good as null and void!

They're simply being used to benefit the ppl behind the scenes!

[Traktion]

The truth hurts, eh?

[Pauly_Boy]

The most the us can discredit the euro, the stronger the dollar will become. If you're looking for the next country to default, it's going to be various states in the USA whoseindividual GDP may well be similar to portugals.

[mfp123]

ridiculous. it is merely a rating. anyone can make a rating.

if they are usually correct, people follow the rating. if theyre usually wrong people wont pay attention to it.

i can make a rating, doesnt mean everyone needs to adjust their risk pricing just because i said so.

if people choose to act based on these ratings thats their choice.

the ratings themselves do not determine bond prices, only the actions of the market can do that.

how can you ban a rating, thats like banning an opinion.

Edited July 7, 2011 by mfp123

['Bart']

...the agencies should be "dissolved" before they can do any more damage, or at least banned from rating countries.

Shooting the bearer of bad news?

Why don't we do away with the offices that calculate inflation, unemployment and deficit figures.

No bad news, no problem.

[interestrateripoff]

We'll just go la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la we can't hear you until you tell us something we want to here.

God they are sounding like 2 year olds.

[geezer466]

On the BBC There is this pic with the caption

Commission President Manuel Barroso questioned the objectivity of the international ratings agencies.

The rest of the World are now questioning the objectivity and medium to long term future of the Eurozone

[Harry Sacks]

Oi! You lot!

Think back a few years when we collectively discovered how the mortgage industry was securitising debt, here on this board. At the time these same rating agencies (shit bags) were A rating that junk.

Again, these same bunch of crooks and their Wall St buddies, with a nod and a wink, are making a quick billion for themselves.

The USA is junk status and they know it! Default via printing! I can't believe you fall for this crap.

[Dorkins]

italy America is the big cahuna,they;re saving it till last.

[PopGun]

Oi! You lot!

Think back a few years when we collectively discovered how the mortgage industry was securitising debt, here on this board. At the time these same rating agencies (shit bags) were A rating that junk.

Again, these same bunch of crooks and their Wall St buddies, with a nod and a wink, are making a quick billion for themselves.

The USA is junk status and they know it! Default via printing! I can't believe you fall for this crap.

Na it seems history has been rewritten. The CREDIT crunch never happened, it's all down to Big Governments according to the banksta apologists.

Problem is that the overspending government gravy train is a privatised service.

Come on kids think....think really hard (close your eyes and stick out your tongues if needs be), what made/forced/allowed all these nations to spend so much ‘money’ in the first place?

I think it’s the neo libs that have the greater trouble grasping reality.

[OnlyMe]

Na it seems history has been rewritten. The CREDIT crunch never happened, it's all down to Big Governments according to the banksta apologists.

Problem is that the overspending government gravy train is a privatised service.

Come on kids think....think really hard (close your eyes and stick out your tongues if needs be), what made/forced/allowed all these nations to spend so much ‘money’ in the first place?

I think it’s the neo libs that have the greater trouble grasping reality.

Look at the bigger picture - it is now not which bank goes but, it is which country/continent and this is where the games are being played. This rating agency action is part of this game, 100% (though you are absolutely right about the big government action that have caued so much of the problem in the first place).

[PopGun]

States and banks are in the same bed - it's one big system of interlocked cronies. I call it socialism - you call it neoliberalism. Who cares? It falls or stands as one.

My only job as an individual is to try and not get landed on.

Good reply.

[John The Pessimist]

Look at the bigger picture - it is now not which bank goes but, it is which country/continent and this is where the games are being played. This rating agency action is part of this game, 100% (though you are absolutely right about the big government action that have caued so much of the problem in the first place).

Clearly interplanetary credit is the solution!!!! Let's sell lunar mining futures and get the whole economy running on fumes again for another six months............

Just put the next Nobel for Economics into the post now.

[copydude]

The most the US can discredit the euro, the stronger the dollar will become.

In the short term.

Surely if some wobbly countries left the Eurozone, the Euro would appreciate considerably?

Anyway, this is getting interesting, since they need the ratings agencies onside to do the Greek Rollover without it being called a default. It doesn't look like the agencies are playing.

[Austin Allegro]

It reminds me of those people who said 'stop talking the economy down' to any journalists who tentatively questioned economic stability a couple of years ago.

[happy_renting]

Great idea. Ban anyone influential from expressing an opinion on any nation's creditworthiness.

That would really instil confidence in the markets. Wouldn't spook them at all, would it?

[copydude]

That would really instil confidence in the markets. Wouldn't spook them at all, would it?

This fear of spooking the markets seems entirely overrated to me. As long as markets go up and down they make money, so it appears a case of what me worry. They get spooked for about a day and a half and then move on to getting spooked by something else.

Take Japan. Earthquakes, nuclear holocaust, rolling blackouts, exports decimated . . . not a spook in sight.

They were spooked by Greece until the austerity vote. Then spook over, as if it was all solved. I read an interview with a trader on Bloomberg: 'We dodged the bullet, missile actually', he said. They all did high fives and went on to something else.

[Harry Sacks]

Are some of you really naive enough to think that absolutely not single trader on Wall St had prior knowledge of this?

"Creditworthy"! Please! Name one single country that has repaid its national debt. It's Impossible.

[Djini]

Great idea. Ban anyone influential from expressing an opinion on any nation's creditworthiness.

That would really instil confidence in the markets. Wouldn't spook them at all, would it?

He's got it! It's a double-agent end play! They decrying the agency rating is making investors jittery! It's all down to Gold VI investors!

I'm making this all up.

[leicestersq]

Are some of you really naive enough to think that absolutely not single trader on Wall St had prior knowledge of this?

"Creditworthy"! Please! Name one single country that has repaid its national debt. It's Impossible.

The United States did a century and a half ago.

[The Eagle]

Are some of you really naive enough to think that absolutely not single trader on Wall St had prior knowledge of this?

That goes without saying, it should be obvious to anyone that banksters rely a LOT on insider info to make their profits.

"Creditworthy"! Please! Name one single country that has repaid its national debt. It's Impossible.

Exactly, in a debt-based monetary system there is no money without debt, so if a country would pay back all debt the money supply would be immensely reduced, therefore nobody expects debts to be paid back, creditworthyness of countries is measured based on the ability to roll-over the debt and pay interest on it not on being able to pay it back!

[erranta]

<br /><a href='http://www.telegraph...g-agencies.html</a><br />'A chorus of policy-makers from Europe and across the world have denounced Moody's drastic downgrade of Portuguese debt as an act of financial vandalism, accusing the "Anglo-Saxon" rating agencies of driving states into bankruptcy and destabilising the global system.<br /><br />Wolfgang Schauble, German finance minister, said there was no justification for the four-notch downgrade or for warnings that Portugal might need a second bail-out. "We must break the oligopoly of the rating agencies," he said.<br /><br />Heiner Flassbeck, director of the UN Office for World Trade and Development, said the agencies should be "dissolved" before they can do any more damage, or at least banned from rating countries.<br /><br />Moody's downgrade late on Tuesday set off immediate contagion to Ireland, with dangerous ripple effects across southern Europe. Yields on Irish two-year bonds surged above 15pc of the first time. Italian borrowing costs reached levels not seen since the aftermath of the Lehman crisis in late 2008. Yields on Spain's 10-year bonds jumped 12 basis points to 5.59pc. '<br /><br /><br /><br />the only thing the ratings agencies need is some zanu luvvin' from uncle bob.shame they couldn't have been more honest about the banks pre lehamn but better late than never.imasgine,telling folk that greece and portugal is struggling.what are they on?<br />

How much of this is all a sham run by the Rothschilds/illuminati/unaccountable Bilderbergs and their evil minions?

Still it will bring about Biblical prophecy - when all the traders are left crying into their soup ration.

When will the day come when ordinary people say enough is enough and dump the current money systems and trade with something else?

[The Eagle]

How much of this is all a sham run by the Rothschilds/illuminati/unaccountable Bilderbergs and their evil minions?

Still it will bring about Biblical prophecy - when all the traders are left crying into their soup ration.

When will the day come when ordinary people say enough is enough and dump the current money systems and trade with something else?

Talking about the Rothschilds, looks like they are busy partying in Montenegro (it seems Mandelson will be there too and Osborne would have wanted to go but decided it would be a bad move politically):

Super-rich party people say: Let's go to Montenegro

Billionaire financier Nat Rothschild has planned a £1m 40th birthday bash in a tiny Adriatic hotspot

By Andy McSmith

This week, it was Monte Carlo. Next week, Montenegro. Nat Rothschild, who has one of the best financial brains in a family renowned for business acumen, will be 40 next Tuesday, and intends to make this a weekend to remember.

The financier is rumoured to be splashing out £1m on a birthday bash. That is small change for a man whose personal wealth is reckoned to be about a thousand times that amount. And the little state of Montenegro is understandably delighted to be chosen as the venue.

[blahblahblah]

It will be a glitzy occasion because Nat Rothschild has a lot of famous names in his contacts book. He was a contemporary of George Osborne at Oxford University, where they were both in the Bullingdon Club together, five years after David Cameron and Boris Johnson. It was Mr Rothschild who brought Mr Osborne and Peter Mandelson together on Oleg Deripaska's yacht, in the summer of 2008, setting off an entertaining political furore when Mr Osborne revealed what Lord Mandelson had said in private about Gordon Brown.

When Rothschild threw a party in New York in 2008, the principal guest was Saif al-Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator, but no one expects him to join the party in Montenegro.

It can be assumed, though, that Nat Rothschild's parents will be there. His father, Jacob, the fourth Baron Rothschild, is an investment banker and philanthropist, and his mother, Serena, is a racehorse owner who set a world record in 2004 by paying 4.6 million guineas (£4.7m) for the racehorse Magical Romance.

[blahblahblah]

The VIP guests

* Nat Rothschild's guest list has not been made public, but according to Montengran sources, it is so glitzy and ritzy that Tony Blair's name was the dullest on the page. Mr Blair will not be joining the guests, though no one will be surprised to see Lord Mandelson there.

* Among the mega-rich believed to have been invited there is Oleg Deripaska, Russian owner of the world's largest aluminium firm, Roman Abramovich, Peter Munk, Hungarian born head of the world's largest gold mining corporation, the South African mining tycoon Mick Davis and Ivan Glasenberg, boss of Glencore, one of the world's largest commodity companies.

* Another likely guest is Tony Hayward, who went into business with Nat Rothschild after losing his position at the head of BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The commodity trading company they founded together is valued at over £1 billion.

* But George Osborne, who has enjoyed Nat Rothschild's hospitality before, may think it too big a political risk to be spotted enjoying the high life in Montenegro just now.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/superrich-party-people-say-lets-go-to-montenegro-2308101.html

What was that? We are all in it together?