These 3 companies are the guardians of the masters of the universe. Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard and Poor are tasked by the world of finance with assessing the risk of loans. It is them who tell investors what the safety is of a particular package of mortgages, or a given government.

But in 2007 something went wrong. It turned out that their sums didn’t add up. Mortgages which they had declared good bets unraveled. The consequence was the collapse of the giants they guarded. And as falling giants do, they crushed us all.

Now, any mortal dick would at this point go home, a lifetime’s worth of dickishness achieved. But no! Not these vicious viagrad specimen. In 2011 they declared that despite their failure to understand the finance sector from which they came, they were the experts in all of the complexities of every national economy the world over. Everyone’s solution is the same and simple – cuts, privatisation, de-regulation.

Essentially, they said: “hey, we’re the guys who thought credit default swaps and sub-prime mortgages were an excellent idea. That didn’t go well! LOL! Now you have to run your country exactly as we tell you. Or we’ll destroy you.”

Dicks.