Standard & Poor’s has had a few hiccups recently, locking themselves into pointlessly downgrading U.S. Treasuries, pissing off Jean-Claude Trichet, and blowing up the CMBS market revival because they realized too late that they’d forgotten to carry a two.

But Jana Partners and Ontario Teachers’ think of these things not as problems but as opportunities for growth. Or, at least, they seem to think that future growth is going to come less from teaching children how to read and do math, and more from rating sovereign bonds issued by children who can’t read or do math.
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