Credit rating agencies: on the ball as usual

It must be great running a credit rating agency. You can say the patently obvious months (or years) after the fact and still make headlines...

For example, the Financial Times reports that Standard and Poor's has downgrade several banks...

Part of the problem with the banks was apparently due to :
“lax underwriting standards due to excess competition mean this cycle will be worse than prior cycles”.

Really? So the banks must have just started doing "lax underwriting" because if they were doing it earlier, S&P would have already rated them lower, wouldn't they?

HT:Don Fishback