Structured credit ratings spectacularly failed AAA and AA investors, and they also hollowed out the market for mezzanine risk. A healthy structured market needs investors willing to sacrifice yield for certainty. It also needs investors willing to sacrifice certainty for yield, without whom risk transfer in structured finance...

R&R Consulting principal Sylvain Raynes challenges the government's claim that it purchased "investment grade" assets in its 2008 rescue of Bear Stearns. Read the full story by Caroline Salas, Craig Torres and Shannon D. Harrington, "Fed Made Taxpayers Unwitting Junk-Bond Buyers," Bloomberg, July 1, 2010....