Questions for Big Bankers

Your questioners omitted one important domain: the role of the rating agencies (Questions for the Big Bankers, January 13, 2010: A27).

We need to ask:

1. What role did the rating agencies play in the collapse?
2. How did the way rating agencies are compensated affect their ratings?
3. Did your bank go rating agency shopping to get good ratings for junk securities?
4. If a small financial transactions tax was instituted to provide an alternative source of payment to rating agencies (instead of being paid by the issuer of the securities), would your bank support that? Why or why not?

Respectfully submitted


Sent to New York Times