Posted on Sunday, June 7, 2009
Let's not forget that you can play with numbers to make them appear just about any way you want. Congress recently revised the requirement mark to market accounting rules (see other blog entries for more explanations). Without even discussing the merits of mark to market and whether thise rules do more harm than good, lets just all remember that this one move has added millions, sometimes billions to bank balance sheets overnight. And lets not forget that the truth behind the new numbers is EXACTLY the same as it was behind the old, less desireable numbers. The reality has not changed.
Talk about perception. Problems go away, literally with the strike of a pen…or do they? The hope is that a better perception will lead to more investor confidence and eventually a better reality.