Darrell Delamaide of the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch:
Barney Frank in the House seems to have climbed into bed with the banks. He wants them not only to be free to guesstimate the value of their toxic assets, as the accounting board ruled they could last week under pressure from Frank, but even to restate some of the billions in losses they reported last year when they still halfway observed mark to market rules.
As a result, the first-quarter earnings reports from the banks will be deceptively positive and investors will have no idea what’s really going on.
Delamaide notes that William Black, a University of Missouri professor and former regulator, believes the current massive federal borrowing is a cover-up of a massive federal failure.
How, Black asks, can you claim on the one hand that banks may need $2 trillion in assistance and on the other claim that they are solvent and fully capitalized?
Good question.
Frank Warner
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