In light of the prior post, I couldn’t help but be amused by this commentary:
MOODY’S PLACES ITSELF ON NEGATIVE WATCH
Washington – Moody’s the ratings agency, has placed itself on negative watch, citing it’s horrendous track record at rating just about everything except t-bills.
"We suck. We couldn’t spot an investment-grade bond in a box of Confederacy Debentures or Continental Bank CD’s." said one source at the agency…
That is perhaps a not-so-obvious joke.
However, this recent article is not: Recession a big worry but not likely: Moody’s
Good call, guys — Triple AAA!
It reminds me of when one of the Rutles sued himself by accident.
you beat the onion with this scoop!
And to add another headline seemingly plucked to the onion, “Lone Frenchie Blows 5b Euro in a Bout of Ennui.”
See, I’ve always figured if the Moody people were any good in the first place, they’d be on the issue side. To paraphrase the old saw about critics, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, rate.”
They can re-rate themselves, but they leave AMBAC with it’s problems now thoroughly dissected and revealed, as well as MBIA, who needed to raise debt @14%, both triple A rated. I did not have, sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinski. That seems to sum it up. Where’s the credibility?
Is anyone else here sceptical about this Frenchy losing 7 billion? Might it not be another way of obfuscating these write-offs? In otherwords: you take the fall for us will give you some Swiss bank account when you get out of jail.
This bank stuff has to be the biggest fraud ever committed.
Societe Generale SA is pissed, feeling they were duped by US snake oil salesmen… US bankers in Davos right now are feeling a “tad” uncomfortable with this news I’m sure. With the magnitude of losses to come in foreign banks, a strong argument is be made that it is has now become exponentially more difficult to sell US financial products abroad and this is a large contributor for the fall-off in demand for the greenback.
Yet another rogue trader who operates without supervision and unlimited amount of capital.
We’ve heard that from MS, MER, C and a few others that escape me at this point.
This story is rapidly becoming the “Warren Buffet to buy __________”
BULLSHIT
Ciao
MS
HuZZZZAAAA!!!!
Independant Ratings!!…. But it will never happen…. Convince our legislature to pass some more convoluted Crap to much things up though.
what is funny about the Societe Generale SA is they sold the bottom…. fools but probably just to manipulate the market….
two points:
1) Barry, is this part of a bigger story, and ifso, do you have the link? Folks in my office would smile if I posted it on the bulletin board.
2) as for being suspicious of the SocGen story — YES!!! It’s hard to swallow such a convenient explanation, and besides — could someone really hide $7B of trades? I don’t buy it. (And besides besides — what was his motive? Simply to cover up his own losses? I can’t swallow this either.)