Our Billionaire In Omaha, the virtuous Warren, who wisheth us all to pay our taxes with the same glee as he doth, hath not spoken? Wherefore?

Wherefore is he moody? Or, it  Moody’s? 

Wherefore art Warren’s fingers to be found in so many pies? Including AIG and its corrupt dealings with General Re…..and Goldman, of which we need say no more…..and now Moody’s?

Tell us it ain’t so!

Excerpt from the International Herald Tribune piece on Buffet’s ties with Moody’s:

“Berkshire owns a stake of roughly 20 percent in the Moody’s Corporation, parent of one of the three rating agencies that grade debt issued by corporations and banks looking to raise money. In recent months, Moody’s Investors Service and its rivals, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, have featured in virtually every account of the What Went Wrong horror story that is the financial crisis………

…Moody’s rated Lehman Brothers’ debt A2, putting it squarely in the investment-grade range, days before the company filed for bankruptcy. And Moody’s gave the senior unsecured debt of the American International Group, the insurance behemoth, an Aa3 rating — which is even stronger than A2 — the week before the government had to step in and take over the company in September as part of what has become a $170 billion bailout.

Mr. Buffett, 78, one of the world’s richest men, is known for piquant and unsparing criticism of his own performance, as well as the institutional flaws of Wall Street. But on the subject of the conflict of interest built into the rating agencies’ business model, Mr. Buffett has been uncharacteristically silent — even though that conflict is especially glaring in his case because one of the companies that Moody’s rates is Berkshire. (Its Aaa rating, for the record, is the same as the one from Standard & Poor’s. Fitch downgraded Berkshire for the first time last week.)”