Moody's Corp

Before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, The World's Greatest Investor essentially said this: We are all of us, myself included, a bunch of junkies -- and history shows that markets will always oblige us with a fix.

The CEO of Moody's Corp. says his company's inaccurate ratings of mortgage-related investments were "deeply disappointing" but investors shouldn't rely on ratings to buy or sell securities.

Next week, Warren Buffett will give his expert opinion about the causes of the 2007 Wall Street meltdown to the government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. But will the Oracle of Omaha's testimony be objective, or will it be slanted to benefit his own mammoth investments?

Lawmakers' decision to restrict financial institutions' ability to select a credit-rating agency to evaluate their bonds may open the market -- and S&P, Moody's and Fitch -- to competition.

The Senate is moving to end the ability of financial institutions to choose the credit rating agencies that rate their investment products, with two amendments to the financial reform bill that could force banks and others to vouch for their own offerings.

MBIA has sued Merrill Lynch because the CDOs on which Merrill bought insurance from MBIA were AAA-rated junk. MBIA says Merrill knew the CDOs didn't deserve the top rating at the time it insured them. If this case succeeds, big banks may find dud ratings very expensive.

Warren Buffett, widely known as an investment genius, is little noted for his PR skills, yet he's a Teflon titan who attracts little whiff of scandal. He managed to run with ethics-challenged Wall Street icons Salomon Bros. and Goldman Sachs, only to emerge ever richer, with his reputation intact.