Daily Archives: 3 February 2013
‘Too many foreigners in France’, French say
A survey in France published this week revealed 70 percent of the population believe there are too many foreigners living in the country and 74 percent believe Islam is not compatible with French society.
(Read more)
Government Squeezes Egan-Jones after US Debt Downgrade
In July 2011, Egan-Jones Ratings Co. became the first nationally recognized statistical rating organization to downgrade the U.S. below AAA. In April 2012, Egan-Jones cut the U.S. government’s credit rating an additional notch to AA from AA+.
Later that month, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division accused Egan-Jones of securities-law violations related to errors in the company’s 2008 application to expand its license as a nationally recognized rater. Last September, Egan-Jones downgraded the nation again, this time to AA-.
Then today, the SEC said it reached a settlement with Egan-Jones, under which the company “agreed to be barred for at least 18 months from rating asset-backed and government securities issuers as an NRSRO.” The deal doesn’t affect Egan-Jones’s license to rate corporate debt.
Maybe downgrading the U.S. had nothing to do with the SEC’s decision to target Egan-Jones, which neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s claims. Regardless, the chronology looks chilling. In essence, Egan-Jones was accused of “filling out forms wrong,” (Read more)