Simon English: Moody's six years too late with its alert on RBS
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Outlook The prize for the stupidest thing said about banks yesterday – it was a cut-throat day in an always competitive field – came from Moody's.
The ratings agency threatened to downgrade more than 100 banks including our own Royal Bank of Scotland, because it has noticed there's a bit of bother in the eurozone.
A downgrade of RBS would have been extremely helpful information about six years ago, but back then Moody's was of the common view that the bank was a pillar of fiscal probity.
Which raises the question of just what purpose Moody's and Standard & Poor's serve, other than their own enrichment.
They inform us of things we already knew far too late for it tobe helpful.
A banking analyst pal onceapplied for a job rating bank debtat one of the two firms a few years ago. He expressed the view that the big banks were built on sand and were likely to end up nationalised and that therefore bank debt was to be avoided.
No, he didn't get the job.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments