tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post5398903965997156105..comments2023-12-31T13:47:05.758+00:00Comments on Fat Man on a Keyboard: No shit SherlockThe Plumphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-45040289423635139852011-10-22T19:40:06.617+01:002011-10-22T19:40:06.617+01:00Here's a recent FT article with a comparison y...Here's a recent <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca38a830-fb2d-11e0-8756-00144feab49a.html#axzz1bXM0fKQY" rel="nofollow">FT article</a> with a comparison you may enjoy, in a bitter sort of way:<br /><br /><br /><i>Some big US banks reported year-on-year increases in third-quarter profits. But the results appear a lot poorer when we peer under the hood of the headline numbers. In most cases, banks have booked the unrealised profits from marking to market the value of their own debt to their creditors. In other words, growing market fears about banks’ solvency – which are driving down the price of their bonds and raising their cost of doing business – are turned to advantage in the profit and loss statements. This is to combine the black magic of leverage with the alchemy of mark-to-market accounting. If Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics arm, allowed Greece to use the same trick, Athens would now be flaunting a public sector surplus bigger than Norway’s. There are two different lessons here – one for pessimists and one for sceptics.</i>CharlieMcMenaminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com