lifestyle leader

Credit ratings agencies don't exactly have the strongest of reputations these days, and for good reason. But to single them out for blame in the euro-trainwreck that is currently unfolding before our eyes, as Merkel and Sarkozy have done, is pretty weak sauce. Reuters:

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel took aim at major ratings agencies on Thursday, saying the European Union should look carefully at whether they had worsened the Greek debt crisis.
"The decision by a ratings agency to downgrade the rating of Greece even before the programme of the authorities and the amount of the support plan were known prompts us to consider the role of the ratings agencies in the spreading of crises," the leaders wrote in a joint letter to European Council president Herman Van
Rompuy."

Sorry, I'm calling bullshit on this one. The credit ratings agencies are merely confirming what everyone who has taken a hard look at the numbers already knows: this is a mess. As Tony Barber points out, this is simply one more of a long series of cases where European politicians find it more convenient to blame "The Markets" for problems largely of their own creation.