Why do you not make the real problem part of the solution?

Sir in your editorial "Subprime shake-up" December 22, you comment on the Federal Reserve's new proposals for some new mortgage lending practices in exchange for those "that led to this year's subprime debacle" You also recommend that regulators enforce their rules better, for instance by inspecting loans at random… but were not the credit rating agencies supposed to do that?

You must be fully aware that even with much worse lending standards there would have been no subprime debacle at all had the credit rating agencies not blessed the securities backed with these mortgages with their prime credit ratings, and so I must ask why you do not make the real problem part of the solution?

You also mention the risk of over-regulation, but Sir, is not in fact the appointment of the credit rating agencies as the supreme risk overseers in the financial markets the mother of all over-regulations? I believe mortgage bankers are quite capable at handling their job so why not let them get back at it again and get rid of those who fouled it all up?