Blog
Unearthing the ratings agencies
23rd January 2010
I used this video piece by Newsnight’s Paul Mason in my A2 macro class today. It was a useful follow up to a presentation last night by Jon Moulton who was decidedly pessimistic about the risks facing the UK economy from the mountainous corporate, household and public sector debt. Paul Mason meets a couple of the people working for the ratings agencies who may decide sometime this year to downgrade the UKs triple A rating on sovereign debt. But the head of securities risk at HSBC claims that the markets have mis-priced the risk of the UK government defaulting on its new debt. The UK has never missed a coupon payment and there is a strong underlying demand for new bond issues. We covered the bond market in a recent Google wave.
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.