It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for.
Interpretation
AAA ratings should signify earned trust, but they became compromised due to corruption within the financial industry.
Matt Taibbi critiques the financial industry, highlighting how the integrity of AAA ratings deteriorated over time. Instead of being based on actual financial stability and trustworthiness, these ratings became accessible through monetary means, leading to false security and ultimately contributing to the financial crisis. This quote serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining ethical standards in finance and the dangers of prioritizing profit over integrity.
In practice
This quote could be used in a financial seminar discussing the importance of trust and integrity in ratings.
You win the modern financial-regulation game by filing the most motions, attending the most hearings, giving the most money to the most politicians and, above all, by keeping at it, day after day, year after fiscal year, until stealing is legal again.
Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class.
'Nobody goes to jail.' This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth - and nobody went to jail.
By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.
At long as a stock is acting right, and the market is right, do not be in a hurry to take profits. One should never permit speculative ventures to run into investments.
If I was counselling an individual, and my purpose was to help that individual, the most important thing would be that you should save more. Because don't expect that your retirement will follow those trajectories that some advisers are telling you.
When getting help with money, whether it is insurance, real estate or investments you should always look for a person with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
If nobody can sell mortgage-backed securities based on trillions of dollars of unpayable instruments, there's a lot less risk in the overall system.
We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.'
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