End the government-sponsored cartel in credit ratings.

The major credit rating agencies have been widely criticized for their role in the international bust and liquidity panic in the markets for structured mortgages and other complex securities. Critics continue to question the effectiveness of rating agency performance, incentives, and oversight. Currently, numerous regulations mandate that investors use credit...

The collapse of the market for subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and other complex derivative securities created a panic among the global investors and short-term lenders who finance such assets, resulting in large losses for investment funds and banks around the world. Critics claim that the major rating agencies failed to...

Testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs about how to improve the credit rating agency sector.

H.R. 2990's approach is in the best tradition of competition and disclosure, rather than regulatory prescription and government sponsorship.

It is old news that the S&P rating agency downgraded the US foreign-credit rating from the coveted AAA to the less impressive AA+ on August 5. But as Republicans look ahead to the possibility that they might defeat Obama, they will inevitably seek ways to recover the exalted AAA status. If history is any guide, repairing the damage done to the U.S. bond rating will be a long, hard slog.

Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.