Five years ago in the pages of this very column I examined "The Ratings Game: Rating agencies as weapons of economic warfare." In that article I explained how the major credit ratings agencies—Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody's, and Fitch Ratings—act as adjuncts of the US State Department, targeting Uncle Sam's enemies with strategic credit downgrades at times that best serve Washington's interest.

As I pointed out at the time, the credit ratings agencies are the oft-overlooked tools of economic (let alone geopolitical) power. With a wave of their hand they can declare a tranche of toxic Mortgage-Backed Securities sludge to be a AAA prime investment opportunity—thus helping to blow a housing bubble and wreaking havoc in the economy—or downgrade the credit of a foreign treasury on a State Department hit list, hindering their ability to raise funds.

It's now time to return to the topic. But this time, we need to examine how these supposedly "independent" agencies are kept in line by their Washington swamp-dwelling masters. By doing so, we will learn some important lessons about how political (and, ultimately, economic) power is wielded by the global banking mafia.