Subject: txt mny -
The most obvious ques tion to anyone reading the Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against Goldman Sachs is this: If the synthetic mortgage product dreamed up by Goldman with the alleged help of hedge-fund maestro John Paulson was "designed to fail," why did it get a triple-A rating from the two top ratings agencies -- Moody's and Standard and Poor's?
Inquiring minds have wanted to know the answer to that question -- and why the SEC hasn't gone after the agencies all week.
On Friday we got the rest of the story, and it's a whopper -- according to an e-mail released by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the guys analyzing all the toxic mortgage junk were victims of the Stockholm Syndrome!
In this case, S&P and Moody's ratings analysts were the hostages and Goldman Sachs and other firms were the kidnappers... [snip]
The ratings agencies were paid by Wall Street to put their "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" on all the junk. American taxpayers will pay the bill for years to come.
Wall Street wants unsuspecting Americans to believe that the story of the Great Recession is too complex to comprehend, let alone assign blame for, and the SEC suit against Goldman goes a long way toward muddying the waters.
The whole sorry saga is right there for the regulators to see, and the ratings agencies are right in the center of it. If only the SEC would take off its blinders. Is that too much to ask?
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