As a minimum make sure that no one forces you to trust the existence of gold in California

Sir, Philip Stevens ends his “Modern-day parable of the run on Northern Rock” on September 21 questioning “Why should we trust anyone?” though a far more precise question would be why should we should be forced to trust anyone? Describing how “the squall became a hurricane because the risks of subprime lending had been carefully concealed in the mortgage securitisation market and then scattered to the winds” he should have remembered that what allowed that to happen were the prime ratings awarded to these instruments by the credit rating agencies.

Stevens, the doubter, even mentions almost with sadness that “it is too late, even if we wanted to, to roll back the frontiers of financial innovation” but of course that is not needed when all that is called for is some more scepticism with regard to the gold in California.

Start dismantling any forced use of the credit rating agencies, now! If the markets want their services let them say so but do not have the regulators do their marketing for them.