Both S&P and Moody’s, actually. 60 Minutes did a fascinating piece on the financial meltdown last night. You can watch it here.
I’ve had an idea in my head for about a year now. And every time I read another story about this financial meltdown, I am more convinced that I’m onto something. I think that every single person in America with a 401k or a 403b should band together to instigate a class action suit against S&P and Moody’s. I believe that unions are the logical place for these class action suits to start.
Why sue the rating agencies? Because if they hadn’t rated these sub-prime mortgage bundles as AAA, they never would have ended up as investment options in your 401k. These agencies are responsible for analyzing investments and rating their viability. They were the first step in the disaster that we’re all suffering under now. I understand that Moody’s and S&P are relatively small fish in the grand scheme of companies that are responsible for stealing your money. But I believe that the discovery process in suing them will lead to the much bigger fish. I believe that the discovery process will show that the rating agencies are paid BY INVESTMENT FIRMS to rate their investment offerings!
I honestly don’t know why Moody’s and S&P are still in business. And why aren’t they forced to put emoticon winkies next to each and every investment rating that they put out?
Americans are understandably pissed. I’m pissed. So why are we acting like we’re powerless?
Our system of “capitalism” is broken and our government isn’t going to help us because the people that are benefiting from this broken system have bought our legislators. If go down the line and sue each of the players in this game of “raid America’s retirement plans”, we can start to fix our broken capitalism system by using it against the people that are using it against us.
No, it’s time that we took matters into our own hands. It starts with going after the rating agencies. I’m convinced that doing so will lead us to Goldman Sachs (and their brethren). We do have the strength in numbers thing going for us. We just need to get organized and band together to make things happen.
If we do nothing, I can assure you that there will be more privatization of profits and socialization of losses to come. This is surely something that we can all agree on regardless of party affiliation, isn’t it?
