Rating agencies can no longer steal their cake and eat it too

Great news on one of the causes of the financial meltdown, the rating agencies can not use the First Amendment as a defense for their, what many term, fraudulent actions.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The ruling is expected to spur more lawsuits and could apply to structured investment vehicles once valued at as much as $400 billion.

Why should you care?

When you, or your mutual fund, retirement plan, City, State etc "invested" in AAA "rated" bonds or securitizations, particularly due to the rule of law, many, many times they were not actually "investing" in less risky, more secure instruments as the AAA "ratings" were in many ways, bull shit.

This ruling will help open the flood gates to hold those responsible, responsible.

Due to the nature of this ruling, the complexity of many financial instruments and the nature of complicated lawsuits, it will take decades to be fleshed out however.