[tim333]

> why are these credit ratings agencies allowed to exist...?

Are you going to ban people from giving opinions as to whether various investments are good or not? As well as being anti free speech it would make life harder for investors. However I guess you could have a government controlled agency in parallel. Or regulate the agencies that their ratings have to be reasonable to get a license and ban/fine them if they are giving AAA ratings to junk.

[hwillis]

> Are you going to ban people from giving opinions as to whether various investments are good or not?

We already do basically do that for legal and medical advice.

[rcxdude]

And it is regulated in the financial space as well.

[hugofirth]

There are plenty of industries where companies don't exist in a particularly free market, and have to operate according to extremely strict regulation. Thats all I meant :)