The first good news to emerge since the start of the Financial Crisis came out yesterday as the remarkably dumb regulations requiring Mark-to-Market accounting were repealed. Maybe the government can do some good, after all.
Mark-to-Market (MtM) accounting, along with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) were the two prime regulatory failures leading to the current crisis. Coupled with public mandated policy to extend mortgages into sub-prime markets through the facilitation of Fanni Mae and Freddie Mac, Mark-to-Market caused, and then accelerated, the financial crisis and lead to the failure of major banking institutions around the globe.
“But I thought it was the greedy bankers that did this?”
Yes, that is what you are being told. Targeting a small group for blame is easier than telling you the truth, that those bankers were working in a system created by gasp Washington.
It is nearly impossible for the current administration to say this becuse they have a vested interest in villifying a secret enemy of those that ‘did’ rather ‘that’ which did, because the ‘that’ is them. Now however, having exausted all other options their only recourse has been to do what works and change some really bad regulations. It took the French and Germans to beat it out of poor Mr. Obama though.
SOX and MtM came out of ...
Health Care Reform: It is a Lie
Yep it’s a lie. After the summer of discontent, and the President’s speech last night (with its heckling) I’ve written up my thoughts on the current health care debate.
I wish we were talking about the issues that would actually solve the problem and stop all the lies. But then again, it’s not really about health care, right?