Credit rating firms criticised over role in financial crisis

The permanent subcommittee on investigations says the firms instilled "unwarranted high confidence" in risky financial products such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). When the crisis emerged they failed to acknowledge the problems fast enough, leading to mass downgrades of billions in investments, triggering the financial crisis. The panel's chairman, Democrat senator Carl Levin, says: "By first instilling unwarranted confidence in high risk securities and then failing to downgrade them in a responsible manner, the credit rating agencies share blame for the massive economic d...