Why on earth are we letting S&P influence serious national policy?

How did it come to this—that a trio of private-sector companies could wield such enormous influence? More specifically, a trio that has proven chronically behind the curve, analytically compromised, and complicit in the financial crisis of 2008–09 as well as the more recent euro-zone debt dilemmas? Somehow, these inept groups again find themselves destabilizing the global system in the name of preserving it…

These agencies also evaluate private debt. And it was their continual stamp of approval on trillions of dollars of ultimately worthless mortgage-backed securities that allowed pension funds, endowments, and municipalities to buy them up in the erroneous belief that they were safe and sound. That decision cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars…

There is one last glaring question: should these agencies even be rating a sovereign entity such as the United States? The dollar is now a global currency of commerce, and U.S. Treasuries are a form of safe-haven currency. It’s not as if the world is unaware of the economic issues of the U.S. The Chinese don’t need Moody’s to tell them about the risks of holding a trillion dollars of U.S. bonds. Shouldn’t the “creditworthiness” of the United States, or the viability of a European debt plan for Greece, be left to the determination of investors large and small worldwide along with the governments of those countries and their electorates? The success or failure of their plans will be evident soon enough, and subject to the thumbs up or down of the people, without the ratings agencies piling on or offering a view.