[Vision2020] [spam] Debate about the bailout

[Andreas Schou]

> By the way, efforts to throw the blame on the accounting rules are bunk -
> Mark to market was the means by which this whole house of cards was
> revealed.  Had we not had mark to market rules in place, this whole mess
> might have been undetected for some time and the consequences even more
> severe.

Oh, hell. It pains me to say it again, but -- again -- I agree with Jeff.

If banks had been allowed to use a 'mark to model' valuation of their
CDO assets, which essentially means to put them on their books as
being worth what the bank predicts them to be worth, the crazy
debt:asset ratios that banks are carrying would never have come to
light. The fact that they're forced to put them on their books at the
actual cost the market will pay is  shining sunlight on the problem,
not creating it.

-- ACS