No, it is the courtesy of the regulatory agencies

Sir, John Plender in “A stretched credit cycle, a more savage downturn” May 22, gives a very clear explanation of the blissful-ignorance-bubble when he mentions the fact that many of the positions “are not marked to market” but instead “marked to model”. Where he is wrong though is when he says that “Credit is being mispriced courtesy of credit rating agencies that are insensitive to market risk.” For that we should thank our financial regulators who by ordering the market to listen to the credit rating agencies created a totally new form of non-market market risk.

And please, why does Plender have to say that “high finance has never been more sophisticated”? when in fact many of us suspect we might be living the period where never have high finance people understood so little of what they really were up to.