I'm going to bash Barney Frank for a second

[AllentownJake]

In 2009, Barney's committee lobbied the rule making board for accounting to due away with mark to market accounting. The reasoning was simple, if the rule continued, 90% of the banks in the country would be insolvent.

They adopted extend and pretend nonsense in it's place and now every time you have an FDIC seizure of a bank, you will see assets that look like they match liabilities, and than an underlying gigantic loss of about 25% to 40% of the recorded assets.

Now Barney is complaining that banks are reluctant to write down mortgage values and deal with customer.

Hello? The accounting rule you lobbied for ensured that would be the result. Take some personal responsibility on this matter and either change the rule, or stop posturing that you are trying to do something.

[donco6]

1. Heh. We have to post our assets at market value.

And banks, whose assets obviously vary much more wildly than mine, don't?

Interesting.

[AllentownJake]

2. It is going to blow up something fierce

Doing this works only if you can return the underlying assets which were inflated during a bubble to their bubble values.

That isn't fucking happening.

[RandomThoughts]

3. I think people may miss the fundamental mind set.

If a guy takes your car and house, you wont get him to agree to give it back, if he would, then he would not have taken the stuff in the first place.

There are a few that see the light and come around, and that is why a patient approach is needed.

But there are some that have to be thrown in jail since they don't know creating situations that hurt people is wrong.

For instance, everyone is complaining about bank bonuses, I would guess, if you went into one of their board rooms they would be saying that they made money, and they would count the Tarp bailout as part of their company income. Funny how half the news stories talk about it being paid back, while we still don't even know where much of it went.

They believe getting that money is no different then any other way they get money and worse they think it is alright to do, they don't think they failed, they made money, it does not matter if it is from Tarp or kicking someone out of there house, it is about making the money. Making it from nothing, from threat of collapse, from deregulation, or from non competitive monopoly actions like joint lobbying, doesn't matter, they think they did there job and earned the bonus, because they got the money.

And they actually think people they are talking about wanting it back are stupid for not taking it back, when in truth most people don't want to hurt others, they don't want to have to throw them in jail or revolutionize the system. And the bad bankers look at those people and think, they got the money and that is what matters, and other people wont take it back. (side note, the reason for that is to make everyone like them)

They think people not willing or wanting to burn them down is a failure in people, because burning things down is how they make money, and what they do, it is there thought model. Remember the green mails where they forced pay outs or a company would buy out a stock and everyone would lose there jobs. Or buy outs where the company was underrated, so they would buy the pieces and sell everything off destroying a business. How about making money from nothing, then selling it to people after getting ratings people to say it has some value. It is all allowed in their world, because it makes money.


If you are selling a used car, and you can sell it for 1000 dollars more, do you lower the price because the buyer is on a fixed income and does not know they are overpaying? No in the money world you try to get another 50 dollars for some warranty that does nothing.

Not everyone is like that, but if a person makes it to a CEO of a major corporation, it is most likely they didn't get there by giving away profit because it is the nice or right thing to do.

[AllentownJake]

4. Barney doesn't lobby the accounting board to get rid of mark to market

They cease to exist.

They exist as solvent entities only in the world of accounting fiction right now.