Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

One of the many requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act is that all federal agencies must remove references to and reliance on credit ratings from their regulations and replace them with alternative methods for evaluating creditworthiness. 

Are ratings agencies to blame for the current mortgage crisis?

The world is becoming increasingly scary at the very time that the military will be facing 20% reductions. With each passing day, the world closes in; with each passing day, our ability to manage that world degrades.

A controversial dimension of the financial crisis has been the role of credit ratings and the perverse incentives facing rating organizations.

Europe's banks and entire monetary system are in crisis from the sovereign debt of financially weak governments.  But the capital requirement for banks to hold such Euro denominated debt was zero.  It was defined as "risk free," but has instead led to massive losses.

It is a delicious irony that the opinions of these particular scribblers get special weight only because the federal government has given it to them.

Regulation is necessary to overcome perverse incentives and ensure the quality of corporate governance ratings, which are important to institutional investors, managers, and their clients.