Justice Dept. Probes Standard & Poor’s on Mortgage Crisis

As we learned last week the decisions of one rating agency can cause a lot of economic volatility.  But according to an exclusive piece from our partner The New York Times this morning, the Justice Department is opening an investigation into Standard & Poor’s to see if the agency improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities leading up to the financial crisis. The ratings being investigated came long before the downgrade of the U.S., but the probe does raise new questions about the credibility of the nation’s largest credit agency and their secretive rating process.   Joining us is Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for our partner The New York Times, who broke the story.