Not true, in practice. Rating agencies are independent of govts... --- ...including their own....The problem is that rating agencies often become victim to 'group-think' -- they do what others are doing.....And they are highly fallible. Remember the 'sub-prime' crisis that started in the US in 2008 and swept across the world? It was the result of foolish lending policies and property speculation, with rating agencies cheerfully giving good marks to what were shadow entities....They ended up paying around $1.3 billion in damages -- but ONLY to the US govt. They had caused global losses.

Source author: Kishan S Rana kishanrana@gmail.com