Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings are the troika of U.S.-based global credit rating agencies. The roots of these credit rating agencies date back to the middle of the 1800s in the U.S. The origin of Standard & Poor’s was when Henry Varnum Poor published History of Railroads and Canals of the United States in 1860, which compiled information on railroads companies, the most capital intensive industry at the time. Their scope of information coverage expanded gradually

As the world continues to be filled with more and more sophisticated, computerized and automated machines, certain jobs have inevitably begun to fade and disappear. A few days ago, I noticed a huge Blockbuster Video store near my house had closed down. The once prosperous video/DVD rental business filed for bankruptcy due to competition from Netflix, which won over customers through enticing offers such as: “Instantly watch as many movies as you want for only $8 a month!” and “Unlimited TV episo

WASHINGTON ― The squeeze is already beginning on Iran’s oil exports ― and guess which nation quietly reduced its purchases from Tehran this month. Why, that would be China, Iran’s supposed protector. The Chinese cut their imports from Iran roughly in half for January, trimming 285,000 barrels per day from their average last year of about 550,000 barrels per day, according to Nat Kern, the publisher of Foreign Reports, a respected industry newsletter. Iran’s reduced sales to China, its biggest oi

Man is a social animal. The 19th-century sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel argued that trade and exchange is “one of the purest and most primitive forms of human socialization.” Last month, while travelling through remote parts of West Timor, in Indonesia, I was able to study first-hand how rural markets operate. I could not help wondering why so-called primitive markets such as these work so well when complex financial markets can be so dysfunctional?Rural markets in East Timor are wonde

At the turn of 2012, the world continues to be in the grip of a two-fold crisis: an economic downturn and widespread job losses on the one side and accelerating global warming and extreme weather events on the other. So far, Asia has been less vulnerable than other regions to the economic slump, but has been arguably the most prone to natural calamities. While both economy and climate demand urgent attention, political leaders fear that dealing with climate change will hurt recovery efforts. In