One thing is the appetite and the other what you eat

Sir of course Wolfgang Münchau is right with his “Boring central bankers got us into this mess” October 15 in the sense that they provided those negative real interest rates that fed the appetite for a credit boom and an asset purchasing boom. Having said that he should not be too cavalier about the role of the credit rating agencies who having been so much empowered by the bank regulators, made things so much worse by suggesting to the gourmands some really bad courses, like the so sub-primly awarded mortgages to the subprime creditors.