Al Franken: “I would like to talk a little further about the problems with credit rating agencies. Yesterday, I filed an amendment to…”

“I would like to talk a little further about the problems with credit rating agencies. Yesterday, I filed an amendment to the Wall Street reform bill that would create a Credit Rating Agency Board and help encourage competition and, most importantly, accuracy in the credit rating system. The major role the credit rating agencies played in the recent financial crisis has been largely overlooked. Most of the blame has been directed at Wall Street's oversized banks and the investment firms that were securitizing any kind of debt they could get their hands on. Ultimately, these firms got their hands on quite a lot, and one of their favorite products became mortgage-backed securities. Investment banks and hedge funds realized there was a lot of money to be made--there is about $9 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities in the market right now. So they securitized every mortgage they could find, and once this happened, this source of easy profits dried up. So Wall Street demanded more, and mortgage lenders all too happily lowered their lending standards and delivered a new fleet of subprime mortgages for Wall Street to securitize.”