You wonder if Gollum Sacks (for instance), might offer payment to a rating agency to diss US Treasuries (for instance)? You smoking powerful stuff. Not so much because of the first part of the supposition. Change US Treasuries for some foreign government's bonds, it might work.

Does anyone care why three American (in spite of a French billionaire owning Fitch) agencies can keep quiet about steaming piles of (US) junk, but make rumbling noises about foreign sovereigns that in fact push the market around? It hasn't seemed to bother anyone in the centre of world financial power to date.

There has been talk recently of creating European rating agencies to compete with this American quasi-monopoly.