The American School Religion
Credit scores in the United States are used as the end all and be all of one's credit score, nonsensically used for approving credit cards, mortgages, and rentals, as if those all had the same risk profile. Moody's ratings are being criticized now for being taken as gospel, as if 'AAA rated' was the only useful thing which could be said about an investment. And my cursory research indicates that the same thing is starting to happen with Zillow estimates. It appears to be that as soon as any official rating appears, americans will cease to apply any judgement of their own and simply accept the official number as gospel.

It occurred to me today what's going on here. It's the religion of the Grade Point Average. Americans are so completely indoctrinated from a young age that a single official number is the sum total of all that can be said of a person's moral worth that they're psychologically incapable of evaluating people or investments in any other way, even when it's their job to do so. Hooray for US education, teaching those important lessons about life.