It totally was illegal, it just didn't involve actions that are in isolation illegal. That's the thing with white-collar crime. No guns, etc. Most of these peo

It totally was illegal, it just didn't involve actions that are in isolation illegal. That's the thing with white-collar crime. No guns, etc. Most of these people had a duty to their customers and they specifically recommended bad investments, knowing that they were bad. And I'm not talking about how a bank hedges all the risk by playing both sides - I mean that the banks which made these investments knew they were gaming the ratings agencies and they sold what they knew was junk to people they had agreed to represent. Criminal behavior doesn't go away just because two people agree to split the work. It doesn't matter if one branch wrote the bonds and another sold them - they lied about what they knew at all levels. And many stories suggest that there was probably direct criminal collusion with the ratings agencies - above and beyond the simple fact that the agencies serve those who pay them...