As market conundrums go, little rivals the credit rating agencies. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investor Service and Fitch Ratings have spent much of this millennium getting the big calls spectacularly wrong. In 2001 they were rating Enron “investment grade” just four days before it went bust. Lehman Brothers, AIG and Washington Mutual had similarly pukka ratings right up until September 15 2008 – or the moment they collapsed. And that’s before anyone mentions the US sub-prime farrago, where packages of dodgy mortgages were sitting pretty on their AAAs – right until the roof came in, taking the world economy with it. ... (full story)