Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner and John Carney of CNBC, who are brothers, both write about Warren Buffett and Moody's. Timothy does so with a kind reference to this Web site, and John does so with a smart piece headlined "Warren Buffett's Anti-Competive Profits" explaining that Mr. Buffett's claim that competition would hurt ratings accuracy is bogus. John Carney: "If competition were merely about agencies competing for business from issuers, quality might decline. But this ignores the perspective of the bond buyer, who would prefer to buy bonds rated by the agency with the highest quality ratings."
I do think John Carney is too kind to Mr. Buffett with the sentence, "It would be unfair to Buffett to wonder if he is just talking his book here." It'd be unfair to John to wonder if in his new job at CNBC he has, alas, already imbibed some of his network's overly reverential stance toward the Oracle of Omaha.
The Carney brothers are a duopoly right up there with Moody's and S&P!
