by Calculated Risk on 10/22/2008 05:23:00 PM

From Bloomberg: Credit-Rating Companies `Sold Soul,' Employees Said

Employees at Moody's Investors Service told executives that issuing dubious creditworthy ratings to mortgage-backed securities made it appear they were incompetent or ``sold our soul to the devil for revenue,'' according to e-mails obtained by U.S. House investigators.

Barry Ritholtz has some excerpts of an IM conversation between two S&P analysts:

Rahul Dilip Shah: btw: that deal is ridiculous

Shannon Mooney: I know right ... model def does not capture half of the risk

Rahul Dilip Shah: we should not be rating it

Shannon Mooney: we rate every deal

Shannon Mooney: it could be structured by cows and we would rate it

Here is the House Oversight Committee transcript from April 2007.