I was going through some emails this evening and reading the comments on my
disintermediating banking post. One comment in particular, by Jeremy, stuck with me: "Well, it'd be hard for the average consumer to evaluate default risk wouldn't it? Unless we want to go back to the rating agencies...and we all know how well that ended up..." Anyway, I was thinking about this and I wonder if that's not the sort of thing you could crowdsource? I mean basically, as I understand it, a rating is a subjective thing, so couldn't you just ask enough folks and average out their replies?
Again, this is an example of a subject I don't actually know anything about, so someone who does feel free to smack me down in the comments.