U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson speaks during a taping of Meet the Press on September 21, 2008 in Washington, DC.
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The failed financial institutiosn were 'set up' for failure and then ridden into obsurity. It should never have happened. The Bush Bunch are incompetents.
....Mark to market rules and strict ratings may be appropriate (though unfair) in the good times as a means of preparing institutions for the bad times. That doesn’t mean they should be rigidly applied or even tightened up during the bad times. Hard exercise may boost your immune system to help stave off disease. Hard exercise after the onset of the disease may not be such a good idea.
Critics of some mild regulatory forbearance during this most serious of crises since the Great Depression will no doubt cite transparency as essential, but the two can go together. I’m not advocating hiding temporarily impaired assets. They can remain on the balance sheet with a footnote explaining the intent to hold to maturity.
It is time for common sense to come before accounting purity and cut our losses. It’s one thing to become a victim of a bad loan or a bad economy. It’s quite another thing to become a victim of unnecessarily strict accounting rules.
