Federal Reserve policy makers including Chairman Ben S. Bernanke voiced alarm in August 2007 over a loss of investor confidence in ratings companies, warning that the declining credibility could worsen market turmoil. “There is an information fog” that “is very much associated with the loss of confidence in the credit-rating agencies,” Bernanke said at a meeting on Aug. 7, 2007. The firms’ “credibility has been shot” and “it is much harder to see that this market will unwind itself in a rather kind and comforting environment,” said Kevin Warsh, then a Fed Governor. The 2007 transcripts of the Federal Open Market ... (full story)