 | The Finance Round-Up: November 29th 2007 | The Oil Drum: Canada | The Finance Round-Up: December 7th 2007 |  |
54 comments on The Finance Round-Up: December 3rd 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
54 comments on The Finance Round-Up: December 3rd 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
At the risk of seeming naive, just how is it that some holdings can be 'off balance sheet' ? What meaning does a balance sheet have if it doesn't include all the factors? I assumed that the Enron debacle had put some serious curbs on this practice, but it defies my logic how companies can have some cards on the table and others off.
Seems like the US government is doing the same thing with military spending being off its sheet too. The more I see of the financial system's workings, the more I see its unravelling being a good thing - except that it probably won't be fixed but just reinitiated under a different name. Whatever happened to Arthur Anderson Inc - did it become Abstrivia or some such?
There are many shades of Enron in the current situation. You would think that lessons would have been learned, but apparently not. Keeping assets off balance sheet - in SIVs for instance - has been a very common practice in recent years.
And that is a big part of the problem. Its been " but mom everyone else is doing it" for so long that the curruption and deception has pretty much come to be tragically expected by so may people and institutions. John