So, it appears that the financial services industry is now objecting to pricing assets on their balance sheets at market value, because it makes their balance sheets look pretty sick.Let's be clear on this: these companies bought a bunch of highly complex financial instruments, ones that they themselves did not understand, and now no one is willing to buy this toxic waste at anything even remotely near to face value.
Stephen Schwarzman, the co-founder of the Blackstone Group, thinks that the accounting rule, FAS 157, which requires that you place your investments on the books at fair market value, is too high a standard, and that,"the rule is accentuating and amplifying potential losses."
What is amplifying the rule is traders and senior executives dealing in pixie dust, because they got a commission for doing so.
Note that SOME companies have been doing mark to market for a long time:
But Goldman Sachs proved why FAS 157 works: Goldman has been marking its books to market for years, and as a result, its risk officers were able to hold back its go-go traders from making bad bets when everyone else was throwing their chips last year into the subprime game.Will no one rid me of these turbulent brokers?
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