Time To Suspend Mark To Market Bush

[Pa(b)st Prime]

Quote from Cdntrader:

what's your point?

Don't you think it's a bit rude as a foreigner to advocate another nation suspending it's Constitution for YOUR trading accounts profit?

In a sense you're no better than Bush going into Iraq.

How much has the TSX fallen the past few months? I'd worrry about my own shit.

 

[Cdntrader]

Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

Don't you think it's a bit rude as a foreigner to advocate another nation suspending it's Constitution for YOUR trading accounts profit?

In a sense you're no better than Bush going into Iraq.

How much has the TSX fallen the past few months? I'd worrry about my own shit.

HAHAHA get over yourself.

 

[gnome]

Suspending "mark to market" is nothing more than a deception. The ONLY reason one would ever do that is to HIDE SOMETHING BAD...

So... we're just supposed to accept that "assets on the books" will NOT be marked to market and pretend everything is both hunky and dory?

 

[rwk]

Quote from gnome:
... we're just supposed to accept that "assets on the books" will NOT be marked to market and pretend everything is both hunky and dory?

This sounds like a good idea to me. Eventually, the debt will default or be repaid. Either way, we will know what it is worth, and ownership remains where it belongs, not in the taxpayers' account.

 

[gnome]

Quote from rwk:

This sounds like a good idea to me. Eventually, the debt will default or be repaid. Either way, we will know what it is worth, and ownership remains where it belongs, not in the taxpayers' account.

That's CRAZY. You can't know what the asset is worth unless marked to market. You can't know what the company is worth unless its assets are marked to market.

We need TRANSPARENCY... not hiding in obfuscation.

 

[Pa(b)st Prime]

Quote from Cdntrader:

HAHAHA get over yourself.

Mostly busting your balls.

 

[rwk]

Quote from gnome:
We need TRANSPARENCY... not hiding in obfuscation.

I agree it ain't pretty. But it has been tried before (early 80's, Latin America debt crisis), and it worked. Paulson's plan has never been tried before, and some smart people doubt that it will work, or that the taxpayers will get a fair deal.

 

[clacy]

Quote from rwk:

I agree it ain't pretty. But it has been tried before (early 80's, Latin America debt crisis), and it worked. Paulson's plan has never been tried before, and some smart people doubt that it will work, or that the taxpayers will get a fair deal.

I'm pretty certain gnome isn't advocating Paulson's plan either.

 

[Cutten]

If your wallet has $1 in it, and you tell people it has $10 in it, you still only have $1. Changing the way you account for an asset in no way changes the value of the asset.

 

[rwk]

Quote from Cutten:
If your wallet has $1 in it, and you tell people it has $10 in it, you still only have $1. Changing the way you account for an asset in no way changes the value of the asset.

This is true. If you have $1 and you need people to think you have $10, you have a problem. That problem becomes a crisis if people aren't buying your story. But if you have $10 coming in, and you can somehow get people to believe that, maybe you can keep the balls in the air long enough to avert a crisis.

Suspending mark-to-market ain't pretty. But it has been done before, and it worked last time. Maybe it would work again. We need to fix the root cause, but we also need to deal with the crisis at hand.