You may never have heard of Foxen, Henhouse, and Scroom. It's a credit rating agency without a PR department. Like its famous competitors -- Moody's. S&P. Fitch -- its makes its money telling the world about the relative risk of investments.
Now everyone is horrified that the agencies are about to say U.S. Treasury bonds, bills, and notes are marginally more risky just because President Obama can't borrow a pot to piss in.
I hope it is not insensitive of me to remark that these are the same credit experts who awarded an AAA rating to your crazy brother-in-law's McMansion mortgage the day before he whipped out his MasterCard and bought one-way tickets (one for the stripper) to Cancun. (cf. CDOS, CMOs etc.)
So, why in Hell are we so worried at the thought of these guys saying, "Uncle Sam is spending himself into bankruptcy?"
Isn't that the same thing you and I have have saying since -- I dunno -- maybe since before Doris Day got to be a virgin?
Foxen, Henhouse & Scroom operates just like the other agencies. The debt issuer pays their fees, and of course no company would think of shopping around for a ratings agency which would, in return for its fee, fudge its opinion.
That's where the agencies differ from you and me. We don't t charge a dime for telling Washington it's operating like a Three Stooges movie policed by the Keystone Kops.
2 comments:
We don't t charge a dime for telling Washington it's operating like a Three Stooges movie policed by the Keystone Kops.
That statement is so full of a level of win - normally reserved for entire blog posts - that it is at risk of exploding from the pressure exerted by its awesomeness.
tweaker
"That statement is so full of a level of win - normally reserved for entire blog posts - that it is at risk of exploding from the pressure exerted by its awesomeness."
....every argument is now moot!
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