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If I were to look for fraud anywhere, I'd start by looking at the people who give inflated ratings to bonds.

Start there, sure, but don't stop there.

What about politicians that use the government to take action against firms when they lower particular ratings ?

Are those committing fraud too ?

What, incidentally, about politicians who force pension funds to buy bonds "they like" by legal means ? (at least 200 politicians in current service are guilty of this)

These are US government bonds, by the way, if a default happens with them, the sort of organisation that will suffer the most is US pension funds.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...

Who said anything about taking out a fraudulent loan?

I was responding to "There should be no more shame in choosing to default as there would be for choosing to exercise a stock option that causes your counterparty lose all his money." The idea is, if "default" were just a neutral acceptable option then we wouldn't think of it as fraud if you took out a loan that you planned to default on.

Intent to default sure, but realizing that defaulting is the best option after your circumstances have changes is not fraud.