We're all Billionaires!

[scorpioatl]

Since mark-to-market is now a fading part of history and is being replaced by mark-to-fantasy or mark-to-hallucination, I hereby declare that my stocks and real estate holdings are now worth $1.5 billion regardless what the actual fair market value is.

Yay!  I'm now a billionaire!

Comments

[scorpioatl]

Profits aren't what worries me. The problem with eliminating mark-to-market is that banks will make up a value of their assets that is completely separated from the reality of what the fair market will pay. This gives banks a perfect place on their balance sheets to hide their losses.

[scorpioatl]

It won't bring the zombie banks back from the undead, it'll just make it harder to tell zombie banks from living banks...

[apparentparadox]

The taxes on that gain will kill you.

[scorpioatl]

DOAH! I like the way you think (but you already know that).

[kodiakva]

This sardonic comment is perfectly placed. Today's moment of politically motivated hubris by FASB reminds me (for the Babylon 5 fans) of Emperor Turhan's dying statement to Lord Refa and Ambassador Mollari:

You are damned.

In other words, the go-along-to-get-along game that gave us the now unpriceable 'securities' known as MBSs and CDOs is officially being endorsed by the political types who run FASB in a last ditch illusion to cook the books, right under everyone's nose.

The old phrase to describe situations like this was "the emperor has no clothes". The new phrase will be "the US has no value", and it's the least of what we'll hear from the international financial community (banks and ministries of finance of China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, etc.) when they're asked why they don't want to deal through the US financial system anymore.

And to cap it off, what good Obama's attempts might have made to restore some confidence in the financial system were just ripped out from under him and us by the FASB bureaucrats

[scorpioatl]

"game that gave us the now unpriceable 'securities' "

BINGO! It's government endorsed bank fraud in my opinion.

At this point, I feel that all I can do is sit back and watch with bemused condesension as the captain steers the ship right into the rocks while exclaiming "Shut up, I know what I'm doing!"

[kodiakva]

Unadulterated and unapologetic naked fraud.