Regulators, please make the financial flows free to flow again

Sir, when Saskia Scholtes reports that “Moody’s alters its subprime rating model” September 25, we get a glimpse on what is the inherent weakness of any rating system that does its rating from the desk. It is not that the borrowers were subprime that caused the current difficulties since there clearly are many prime mortgages to subprime borrowers, it was that some of those shady operators that always exist in any market exploited the Achilles heel opportunity provided by the credit agencies themselves when they assigned prime ratings to very sub-primely awarded mortgage loans. Anyone should have been able to tell those mortgages were lose-lose propositions if only they have left their desk for just a second to go and have a look.

The above describes perfectly the systemic risks or even the moral hazard that can and will arise from empowering any agent in the market too much and there is no way on earth you can really correct that, and much less so if you insist on doing the ratings by monitoring real life from afar.

I do appreciate the credit ratings efforts and that we should be able to benefit much from their services, but this can only occur if the market is also totally free from not having to use them. Regulators please make the financial flows free again.