Prosecutors Ask if 8 Banks Duped Rating Agencies

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Prosecutors-Ask-if-8-Banks-nytimes-782041221.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

The investigation angle should be: Who's on whose Family Tree.
Who owns or has controlling interest in the ratings agencies should be the number 1 priority question here.
I know it's mine.
And while we're at it, where else do the brances of those Family Trees extend to?
The starting point should be the FED!

The New York attorney general has started an investigation of eight banks to determine whether they provided misleading information to rating agencies in order to inflate the grades of certain mortgage securities, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.

The investigation parallels federal inquiries into the business practices of a broad range of financial companies in the years before the collapse of the housing market.

Where those investigations have focused on interactions between the banks and their clients who bought mortgage securities, this one expands the scope of scrutiny to the interplay between banks and the agencies that rate their securities

Standard & Poor's cuts ratings on 22 banks

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Standard-amp-Poors-cuts-apf-15548167.html?sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

There is the truth of the story in those two paragraphs and it holds true for every bank even the ones paying back their TARP loans.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Wednesday cut ratings and revised outlooks on 22 banks amid concern about further weakening in the financial sector.

S&P said the changes reflected its assessment that volatility will remain in the financial sector and the industry is expected to face tighter regulatory oversight. S&P also said loan losses, which have plagued the industry for more than a year, are likely to continue to increase and could grow beyond expectations