Rating Agencies Considered Harmful | 91 comments (91 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Rating Agencies Considered Harmful (none / 0)

Quite true, which means that cashing out might be a risk-free option, but only for the very short term. Anything longer than that and you have to take account of the risk of getting robbed, money losing value, missing out on appreciation that your neighbors are getting, etc. It's likely the case that the risk of holding cash, if you're American, Japanese, or European, is about as high as the risk of holding a US Treasury bond, which can by judged, ideally, against other AAA rated opportunities for securing your wealth.

by santiago on Tue Apr 27th, 2010 at 02:49:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rating Agencies Considered Harmful (none / 1)

You live in the short term.

If you have enough money to worry about it losing value due to inflation, then I really can't get worked up about you losing some of it to the capital market piranhas.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Apr 27th, 2010 at 02:59:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rating Agencies Considered Harmful (none / 1)

Which is why I keep arguing that the credit crisis is mainly a problem for the rich. But what complicates matters is that social savings also has to invest and save in order to provide for pensions and other benefits, and, like hedge funds for the rich, public pension managers also need to optimize, under time constraints, where and how they secure their members wealth, so they rely heavily analysis of risk such as that provided by rating agencies.

by santiago on Tue Apr 27th, 2010 at 03:15:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rating Agencies Considered Harmful (none / 1)

Which is why I keep arguing that the credit crisis is mainly a problem for the rich.

The credit crisis should have been mainly a problem for the rich. The problem is that the rich are being allowed to strangle the real economy to make up for the shortfall in their fictitious funny-money returns.

As long as you vest political control of the production process with the people who make money, rather than the people who make goods, a crisis in the monetary system will be a problem for the poor.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Apr 27th, 2010 at 10:06:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Rating Agencies Considered Harmful | 91 comments (91 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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