With the recent downgrading of almost ten Eurozone states by Standard & Poor’s from their so-called triple-A ratings thanks to their debts, sage Euro policymakers have railed against them and the other two agencies, Moody’s and Fitch.

The claim by these staunch Europeans is that these credit rating agencies were too quick in downgrading their debt ridden countries from their much coveted ‘AAA’ status despite these chronic economies succumbing to ‘bailouts and austerity programmes’.

Coincidentally, as if by the magic of the ‘free market’ some new characters have appeared on the scene called Berger and Krall to launch a European ratings agency that has the welfare of Europeans at heart. They will be, unsurprisingly, providing — to paraphrase their own words — a ‘non-profit’ organization paid for by their clients who have an interest in having ‘reliable and objective’ results.

Naturally, ‘reliable and objective’ is what B&K decide is the case; probably something that is palatable to their clients. Why do we say this?

Simple.

First, these characters will ask Eurozone states and companies whom they have been assiduously lobbying (they are just another lobby group) to cough up 300 million euros of capital to start them off sometime this year. Well, bully for them.

Their service oriented approach for the welfare of the European people is sealed by their claim that they intend to be subject to ‘product liability’ in which case customers could potentially claim damages from them if their ‘analysis’ is wrong.

The Eurozone supreme paymaster, Germany, must be quite happy with this inspired idea.

When they offer a ‘triple-A’ rating back to many of the EU states, considering the ‘bailouts and austerity programmes’ the European states have been inflicting on themselves for the good of their people, they will thereby vindicate the Euro policycrats’ justification of their rants against being told they’re just a bunch of bad managers and policy fabricators,and worse: they don’t deserve a triple-A rating.

But they still have something else going for them, B&K, they’ll also be open to being charged for any liabilities if their ‘accurate’ assessments prove to be not so accurate.

Yet, think about it. If and when the Eurozone gains a ‘triple-A’ rating back from an ultra new rating agency, how likely is it that the money grubbing elites in Europe are going to argue that they don’t deserve a triple-A rating?

Would the term ‘vested interests’ surface somewhere in the process?

While other characters like China and some Arab states have indicated a potential interest in buying into such a ‘reliable and objective’ rating agency, hopefully the people in general will not see what a waste of funds this whole exercise is.

And let us not be cynical about the B&K public servants with their ‘non-profit’ foundation as they salivate after some 300 million euros which they hope to skim off governments and corporations.

Why?

Because there is no end to do-gooders for the international banking and corporate cartel and the politicians subservient to them. We also have more service-to-the-people entities like the Kroll Bond Ratings Agency.

These characters are full of ‘integrity’ because they are apparently directly accountable to investors via being 40 per cent owned by pension funds and even have built-in ‘safeguards’ against conflicts of interest. Since no one there is in it to make millions of dollars off the backs of hard working honest folks in Europe and elsewhere, why should we not trust them?  

Increasingly, the motto for the Eurozone and all places dominated by the elites seem to be salus publica suprema civitatis lex ex, which is etched onto their bank accounts as they believe, tongue-in-cheek, that truly ‘the public welfare is the community’s highest law’ (here is meant the banking-corporate-politico community). 

The fact is, the entire world economy and the elected and unelected characters in it are perpetuating a global scam. They rob the savings of the ordinary people to play their games to further enrich themselves. This nefarious game has gone on for some time: sometimes it’s called capitalism, in which elites across the globe serve their own interests.

The corporate media plays this entire self serving scheme up and thereby helps produce the financial gospel which always has the elites trying to do good for everyone else as long as they, the elites, have hefty financial gains to be had from this kind hearted activity.

What is rarely asked by many citizens of the world, and of course the corporate media, is:

• How come everything seems to be going to blazes despite all these ratings and/or lack of them, that is, why is it that these ratings never make a difference to lives of everyday people.
• How come, more people are unemployed or are employed for shorter periods and are laid off as increasingly lower paid workers (middle class ‘executives’ are also just workers these days as they’re finding out) replace them; and why are pensions (which are channeled into ratings agencies, we forgot, sorry), medical and any other generic welfare funds seem to be on the wane.
• How come people are actually protesting against ‘bailouts and austerity programmes’ in the streets. Is there perhaps something wrong about such government sponsored activties, or is it the people who are wrong (what do they know anyway, they’re not experts).
• Would the money being spent on ‘non-profit’ ratings agencies which serve the interest of financial and economic cartels be better spent on ordinary people (in fact, are ordinary people even ‘people’ if they’re not elites….this is the great philosophical question of the 21^st century).
• Could the millions already spent on ratings agencies by governments, financial and economic entities be better utilized for perhaps human beings who are actually in need and, just as imaginatively, possibly even for the well being of the environment and planet…
• Which governments on Earth have come clean as to what they actually do spend on ratings agencies and other such entities using tax payers’ money (would the term ‘transparency’ be appropriate here).

Our concern is that when the social reckoning finally sweeps across the world and it is time for global justice to be meted out, that the ordinary people have restraint and show some mercy to those who have it ‘coming to them’.

We need to show that the ordinary people are truly the receptacle of  humaneness that genuinely defines the human race, even when it comes to dealing with the elites.

Philosophers for Change