U.S. Debt Clock

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1. Then there’s the “vaguries” of wall street finance whereby campaign contributions are put to work to create fictitous earnings, capital, etc.

   From http://www.financialarmageddon.com/ Something of a Joke on May 21 post

   Over the past several years, the field of accounting has undergone quite a metamorphosis.

   After starting out as a boring but functional method of keeping tabs on how a business is doing, it has become a tool for manipulation, a means of executive aggrandizement, a shroud for nefarious activities, and a vehicle for creating alternative realities.

   In sum, suggests columnist Jonathan Weil in a thoroughly entertaining Bloomberg commentary, “Freebasing in Caymans Would Be a Banker’s Dream,” it has become something of a joke.

   The race to the bottom is on for the two boards that set most of the world’s accounting standards. This can mean just one thing. It’s time they got competition.

   Let us begin with a critical question. In this era of infinite possibilities, what might a truly industry-friendly setter of accounting principles look like? Allow me to present for your consideration the Financial Reporting Irregularities Board. That’s FRIB, or “Free-Bee,” for short. Its motto would be simple: You report, you decide.

   Ever since last fall, the big news from the accounting mandarins in the U.S. and Europe has been one relaxation of their precious rules after another. One day, the International Accounting Standards Board in London is rushing to please bankers and politicians by softening its pronouncements on “mark-to-market” accounting, only to watch the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board loosen its own rules later.

   Nothing they’ve done has been enough to satisfy the banking and insurance industries. They just keep playing the two boards against each other, begging for more breaks

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