Where are the credit rating agencies? In the current credit crisis their silence damns them, and the reforms currently discussed should include an examination of the unhealthy oligopoly that has formed in the private credit rating business.

In this unprecedented world credit crisis we have heard very little from Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s yet both share blame for the current market opacity. Since their ratings on structured products turned out to be a fiasco, the agencies’ public relations efforts have been to react to credit market conditions with silence, or merely point to expectations of increased defaults. This is unacceptable given the fees paid by corporations to the agencies to rate them, and the dependence on credit markets for assurance that an independent and fair opinion has been issued. If Moody’s, S&P and Fitch wish to avoid getting caught in government’s knee-jerk reaction to regulate and oversee then the agencies had best say something soon, and loud and clear too.