¡No Pasarán!: To Call it Hyperbole Doesn’t Even <i>Begin</i> to Describe it

To Call it Hyperbole Doesn’t Even Begin to Describe it

posted by Joe @ 15:55

Including invoking the Gods in a way that a society where 4% of the population attends religious services can:

the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung urges: "God must be a US rating agency. There's no other explanation for why seventeen democratically elected governments bite their nails in fear when one of these agencies says what it thinks about Greece. ... The American God named Standard & Poor's has let the Europeans know that it does not want banks, insurance companies and pension funds involved in the Greek bailout.

There has been much chatter about financial ratings agency. The most offensive parts of that being a) that the three big ones are American, and b) that they can’t be manipulated to tell the stories that the Governments selling their bonds want them to.

Counterproposals have included “starting a European ratings agency”, which was shot down on both ends: first, there is a fear that they will tell the truth and thus be no different than Moody’s Fitch, and S&P. From the other end, is the fear that it won’t be taken seriously because all it will do is provide a false portrait of the assets rated.

Apparently, investors should not be warned of anything, ever, if a government is peddling bonds it might never pay out on. Don’t these crypto-commie clowns insist on investors somehow magically being protected from the forces of the market?

This is what some Europeans want the ratings agencies to say at all times about the bonds European governments are selling:

Their sophistication is so great, it’s largely unintelligible to the rest of us:

The Greek austerity package, is the voluntary participation bank also. Since transmits the rating agency Standard & Poor’s between them and threatening to “D” rating for Athens. This cross-shot but could backfire -. When making policy and ECB Ernst

Got that? Think what you will, but DON’T you DARE RATE IT!

The head of the Hamburg World Economic Institute (HWWI), Thomas Straubhaar, said the “Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung”, the rating agencies played a “very dubious role”. The policy had gone into the hands of a few monopoly pricing services. It is necessary to limit the power of rating agencies and to return to different standards of evaluation.

So, what exactly does that mean? Selectively limiting their speech rights and tell them that they can only criticize the coldness of your headquarters building? Rate the coffee down the street from the place? Investors will LOVE that! – especially those retirees who want to put their money into something SAFE like a Greek 10 year bond!

They might actually take it seriously enough to figure out that their motives: which is to tell you something other than what the market will. This will guarantee that they won’t raise anything from those bond auctions.

Further with the Vogon poetry:

same time, the ECB wants to reject Greek government bonds, according to “Financial Times” only when all three major rating agencies to determine a default. Accordingly, the ECB will be based on the highest possible credit rating, will receive papers from the Greek S & P, Fitch or Moody’s.

While at least one of the three agencies is no payment default (default) stated, Greek bonds could then be accepted by the ECB repo transactions as collateral.

Got that?

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Wednesday, July 06, 2011

To Call it Hyperbole Doesn’t Even Begin to Describe it