I can't understand ...

Why none of them are in jail, but then, we live in a rich man's world and that's as far removed from reality as anything can be:

...

You know how this works, don't you? The banksters involved pay the ratings agencies to rate the bonds. The rating agencies get paid according to the rating that they give to the bonds. So they get higher fees for rating mortgage-backed tripe AAA than they would if they rated them AA (or C).

But nations pay no ratings fees to S&P, so they don't have any qualms about how they rate nations.

...

You know what the problem is? We have too many people not producing anything; too many "middlemen". Too many people are making money in this country by doing nothing else than moving a piece of paper from one place to another.