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2011-03-08 Europe

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Posted by Fred 2011-03-08 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 Wow, I didn't know that had a credit rating BELOW Greece!

Is Greece's credit rating like the Mendoza line in baseball?

Is our credit rating taking the same express elevator to the basement?

Posted by Bill Clinton 2011-03-08 09:53|| 2011-03-08 09:53|| Front Page Top

#2 Credit rating agencies played a big part in creating the current worldwide economic disaster by giving top credit ratings to utterly worthless paper.
Then deadbeats like Greece borrowed for all & then far more than they were good for.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-03-08 12:33|| 2011-03-08 12:33|| Front Page Top

#3 A rating of B1 is still too high. That means it's still in the middle of the pack. In reality, I wouldn't touch their debt for 10 cents on the dollar.

Posted by Frozen Al 2011-03-08 12:47|| 2011-03-08 12:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Several years ago I read an essay on the credit crash that blamed, primarily, 3 things:

1) The CRA which opened the floodgates on bogus gov't insured mortgages (all in the NAME of helping the poor)
2) BASEL II - which moved accounting of the worth of assets from a mark to model basis to a mark to market method. This "vanished" billions in assets that had been used as collateral for loans. When the collateral "disappeared" the loans were called.

3) Most relevant to this, the credit rating agencies kept hanging AAA ratings on worthless derivatives etc.; then pulled the plug. The key question is this: In the essay George Soros was mentioned as a major player in the credit rating debacle. Anyone else hear this?

Posted by AlanC 2011-03-08 12:53|| 2011-03-08 12:53|| Front Page Top

#5 AlanC,

No. It's really straightforward. There was far too much credit.

Why? Basel2 regulated lower reserves to ~0 (first move of Basel 3 was to reverse this) 1/reserve = System Credit.

Too much credit drove down yields to below the risk, and thus bankruptcy was inevitable.

At the moment there's lots of noise and smoke (and bailing out the politically connected at taxpayers expense) until things are allowed to correct.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-03-08 13:49|| 2011-03-08 13:49|| Front Page Top

#6 The US Federal government is 4 years behind Greece and will reach Greece's current public debt of 145% of GDP in 2015. Sooner if state and local debt in included.

Posted by Gloluse B. Hayes9343 2011-03-08 14:19|| 2011-03-08 14:19|| Front Page Top

#7 BP, not sure what you mean by ~0. Are you saying that Basel II changed the reserve requirement to $0? That would certainly be a problem, but, that seems to be about the same as the model to market shift which lowered the value of the reserve (collateral).

The credit being driven below (way) risk was a factor of the Fannie/Freddy guarantee (wink, wink) that the gov't would insure all those bad loans aka no risk to the lender.

Posted by AlanC 2011-03-08 15:54|| 2011-03-08 15:54|| Front Page Top

#8 ION WAFF > POSTER THREAD = IIUC proudly opined that NO WAY WILL THE US-NATO-EU ALLOW GREECE TO COLLAPSE BECAUSE GREECE, DESPITE ITS SEVERE ECON TRUBLES [including POOR CREDIT RATINGS + MUSLIM/ FOREIGN IMMIGRATION], IS NOW THE US-NATO-EU'S INDISPENDABLE MILITARY FORT IN THE "WILD WILD WEST/INJUN COUNTRY" KNOWN AS JASMINE-TROUBLED ARAB MIDDLE EAST + PERSIAN GULF = SE EUROPE + MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS.

The Vanguard + Bulwark between Europe + Arab-Muslim barbarian hordes, espec WILY DASTARDLY,
HELEN-STEALING TROY/TROJAN, USED-TO-BE-GREEK/GRECIAN, YOU-CALL-THAT-A-BIKINI-BABE-CALENDAR MUSLIM TURKEY [Greece-vs-Turkey Mil Forum Boyz].

Posted by JosephMendiola 2011-03-09 00:07|| 2011-03-09 00:07|| Front Page Top

00:07 JosephMendiola
23:53 USN,Ret
23:51 JosephMendiola
23:47 JosephMendiola
23:40 USN,Ret
23:23 JosephMendiola
23:06 CrazyFool
22:57 twobyfour
22:41 trailing wife
22:26 Fire and Ice
22:17 trailing wife
22:13 Swamp Blondie
22:04 Procopius2k
22:02 Classical_Libera
21:53 Broadhead6
21:30 lotp
21:29 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division
21:25 crosspatch
21:21 Gloluse B. Hayes9343
21:20 Angie Schultz
21:19 Angie Schultz
21:18 Angie Schultz
21:16 swksvolFF
21:13 Gloluse B. Hayes9343