Moody’s: Kettle, meet pot

A fissure has finally appeared in the tight-knit ratings agency club. The cause, as with geological disturbances, is a change in pressure. With the structured finance business more or less dead, there’s little incentive for Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s to maintain the fictions once used to justify rating dross as gold. And with their reputations in tatters, both firms are trying to take tougher lines overall. Together, these help explain Standard & Poor’s decision to put Moody’s rating under a ...