S & P's real agenda

naked capitalism--

""Standard & Poor’s was the most aggressive of the three agencies, however. And on January 16, 2003, four days after the Georgia General Assembly convened, it dropped a bombshell. Because of the state’s new Fair Lending Act, S & P said that it would no longer allow mortgage loans originated in Georgia to be placed in mortgage securities that it rated. Moody’s and Fitch soon followed with similar warnings.

It was a critical blow. S& P’s move meant Georgia lenders would have no access to the securitization money machine; they would either have to keep the loans they made on their own books, or sell them one by one to other institutions. In turn, they made it clear to the public that there would be fewer mortgages funded, dashing “the dream” of homeownership.

It was an untenable situation for the lenders who had grown addicted to the securitization money spigot. With S& P shutting it off to abusive lenders, it was only a matter of time before the Fair Lending Act was dead. """

Ye
s...but some of the hysteriacrats liberal bloggers forget the implications of the Clinton-Gingrich de-reg policies: one direct result was easier qualifications for mortgage loans. With swaps and other hustles in place, the pimps loansharks could make more deals, even with shaky borrowers (and then pass off the "C paper" to insurance chumps, more or less--). That may have been good for some--but not all--and certainly not for lenders (not all of whom are teabugs). S & P was, arguably, protecting consumers in 2003, at least indirectly: they were suggesting don't deal with the loansharks who will give anyone a loan. S & P is not exactly "leftist" but somewhat Keynesian--they want security, not texass-style capitalism, and support government intervention as needed (i.e. one reason for the ratings decrease was due to the Demopublicans' refusal to increase tax rates). Or so it seems.