Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Solving the financial crisis fictionally

Is it possible for the government to solve this crisis by engaging in a massive attempt to fool the public? These caught my eye:

1. Accounting Standards Wilt Under Pressure (From WaPo) In October, largely hidden from public view, the International Accounting Standards Board changed the rules so European banks could make their balance sheets look better. The action let the banks rewrite history, picking and choosing among their problem investments to essentially claim that some had been on a different set of books before the financial crisis started.
The results were dramatic. Deutsche Bank shifted $32 billion of troubled assets, turning a $970 million quarterly pretax loss into $120 million profit. And the securities markets were fooled, bidding Deutsche Bank's shares up nearly 19 percent on Oct. 30, the day it made the startling announcement that it had turned an unexpected profit.

2. ShadowStatistics (debunked).

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