第四篇的原文——新浪博客真不好用！
2010-01-10 16:12阅读：
英文文章算字符刚5000个，老在提示说编辑的文章超过四万字符，里面没有任何特殊符号和链接啊。新浪博客的技术真够可以的！
第四篇文章的原文
Banks and mark-to-market
accounting
The
Economist
April 8th,
2009
In public, bankers have been
blaming themselves for their troubles. Behind the scenes, they have
been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters.
Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous
losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value
some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price
managers and regulators would like them to fetch. Unfortunately,
banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be arcane,
but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper
functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless
banks carry toxic assets at pr
ices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be
difficult.
On April 2nd, after a
bruising encounter with Congress,
America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed
through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models
to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognising losses
on long-term assets in their income statements. Bob Herz, the
FASB's chairman, decried those who 'impugn our motives'. Yet bank
shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobbying group
politely calls 'the use of judgment by management'.
European ministers
instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards
Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to be
'piecemeal', but the pressure to fold when it completes its
overhaul of rules later this year is strong. On April 1st Charlie
McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did 'not
live in a political vacuum' but 'in the real world' and that
Europe could yet
develop different rules.
It was banks that were on the
wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today
they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they
largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the
likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years.
But banks' shares trade below their book value, suggesting that
investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the
paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking
losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed
bargains.
To get the system working
again, losses must be recognised and dealt with. Japan's
procrastination prolonged its crisis. America's new
plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets
to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require
independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB
have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and
pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests.
But by appeasing critics now they are inviting pressure to make
more concessions.
Standard-setters should
defuse the argument by making clear that their job is not to
regulate banks but to force them to reveal information. The banks,
their capital-adequacy regulators and politicians seem to dream of
a single, grown-up version of the truth, which enhances financial
stability. Investors and accountants, however, think all valuations
are subjective, doubt managers' motives and judge that market
prices are the least-bad option. They are right. A bank's solvency
is a matter of judgment for its regulators and for investors, not
whatever a piece of paper signed by its auditors says it is.
Accounts can inform that decision, but not make it.
Banks' regulators have to take
responsibility. If they want to remove the mechanical link between
drops in market prices and capital shortfalls at banks, they should
take the accounts that standard-setters create for investors and
adjust them when they calculate capital. They already do this to
some degree. But the banks' campaign to change the rules is making
inevitable a split between two sets of accounts, one for regulators
and another for investors. The FASB and IASB can help regulators to
create whatever balance-sheet they want. But in doing so they must
not compromise their duty to investors.
