The article isn't really making a prediction (though the headline spins it as if it might). It's pointing out a pretty obvious and easily understood conflict of interest in the way the bond rating market works. When rating packaged debt, the rating companies are not being "hired" by the end investor who will bear the risk, but by a middle-man firm who are creating the security and trying to unload it. So the rating firm only gets hired if the packager thinks they'll rate the security highly.
That's a real problem, and needs to be solved. It's not by itself a trigger for a financial crisis, though it's not hard to imagine it becoming one.
That's a real problem, and needs to be solved. It's not by itself a trigger for a financial crisis, though it's not hard to imagine it becoming one.