Rip the Political Masks off the Three Most Famous Credit Rating Agencies

In less than two months after the new year, Standard & Poor’s, Fitch and Moody have lowered the ratings of many European countries. Obviously, on the euro zone’s road to extricate itself from the debt crisis, these rating agencies are insurmountable obstacles.　

It should have been the rating agencies’ job to help discover risks and indicate the right investment direction. However, what people have seen for many years is that these three most famous rating agencies have not effectively discovered risks in time, but have created and even exacerbated the crisis. As the saying goes, “one word determines a fate; one sentence ruins a whole country.” Since then, the consequence is that international finance has never been stable and the global economy has been contaminated. The problem is this: The three most famous rating agencies not only keep making mistakes, but also refuse to declare any responsibilities. They don’t even feel guilt or the need for introspection. To the contrary, they insist on making mistakes, never cease to gain benefits and continue the insanity.　　

Their key supporters, Wall Street and the government, the most powerful market and government respectively, should account for the unscrupulousness of the three rating agencies. The three rating agencies have long abandoned their credo of “scientific, fair and objective.” They have become the masks of Wall Street’s opportunistic pillage and the tools for the government to maintain U.S. economic power and wangle political benefits for internal political competition.

The rating agencies are only members of the Wall Street financial benefit groups for the core purpose of opportunism. For example, the main shareholders and also the big clients of Moody, the biggest rating agency, include Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Cooperation, Citi Bank, Goldman Sachs and the like. Goldman Sachs helped the former Greek government join the euro zone by falsifying some facts. Then, it provided the information to rating agencies and chose the right opportunity to collapse Greek bonds and the Euro. Finally, when the rating agencies claimed “The tempest is coming,” Greece fell and the Euro debt crisis erupted. Wall Street’s tremendous profits are obtained through opportunistic activities. The rating agencies are only masks of Wall Street’s opportunistic pillage.

Last year, Standard & Poor’s was so audacious that it lowered the credit rating of the United States. The whole world was surprised and the United States was stunned. The aggressive Republicans took this chance to trap the Democrats and blamed the Obama administration for ineptitude and inefficiency that led to the loss of the 94-year AAA rating. The Republicans, obviously, support Standard & Poor’s. The reasons are conspicuous: It is not a secret that the Republicans align themselves with Wall Street, and therefore it is logical for them to take advantage of Wall Street to refute and attack the Democrats under the atmosphere of stiffened and polarized U.S. politics. Hence, the rating agencies have secretly become the tools of the domestic competition between parties and conflicts of group interest.

In fact, Standard & Poor’s withdrew the AAA rating from the U.S. because it recognized that the market no longer regards U.S. bonds as zero-risk. However, the withdrawal of the AAA rating at least means that developed countries, especially those with huge economies, will no longer have AAA rating, simply because the U.S. needs to keep U.S. dollars shiny, unique and the first choice of the global investors in the basket of “rotten apples.” U.S. dollars and the international monetary system led by U.S. dollars are America’s core interests. The U.S., taking advantage of its leading role in the world, infinitely prints and issues U.S. dollars, exports the depreciated dollars to the world and imports reasonable commodities and services. This is done to be parasitic to the world by taking advantage of the system “FRS — Wall Street — Central Banks in other countries” to launch the U.S. dollar’s international circuit. The rating agencies are the crucial tools in the U.S. dollar’s international circuit. Since the eruption of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis, U.S. dollars have plummeted three times and re-increased along with the depreciation of Euros. The depreciation of Euros happened right at the point when the Euro debt crisis appeared and exacerbated. The rating agencies created this point. Obviously, the rating agencies have become a tool of the U.S. economy’s hegemony.

International society has an increasing recognition of the real functions of rating agencies as masks and tools. South Korea, India and other Asian countries keep seeking strategies to protect themselves; the E.U. counterattacks with various strategies; and China also actively supports a domestic rating business to maintain an active leading and financial speaking role.