CRA

Who rates the credit rating agencies such as Moody's, Standard and Poor's ?

They can make and break corporate reputations and their financing options, but they are known to have made the occasional mistake in their ratings. They are like traffic lights who may have the occasional dysfunction. Now and again, such a dysfunction may lead to a significant pile up ...

Who controls the traffic lights ?

Corporations and CRA's ... another image which comes to mind is that of the snake eating its own tail (generally seen as a symbol of eternity, but not in this case, quite the contrary) ... Corporations who prided themselves on their excellent ratings and used them extensively to evaluate their financing options, now cringe under the impact of a lower rating.

Personally, I feel quite unhappy about the - almost unlimited - power of these agencies. In the present volatile financial world, their ratings can have the effect of a serious bombshell, further undermining the positions of the corporations they examine. In many cases that may be justified, but there always is the odd exception.

The question remains : who controls the controller ? Who controls the Delphi oracle ?

What is a CRA ? See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agency.