Mark to market is an important thing to do to have an accurate image of the value of a company assets in an orderly market place where the value of securities can be reasonably determined. The market is not currently orderly. The mortgage backed CDOs are currently almost worthless in the marketplace when, in fact, they have worth because, while the default rate for mortgages is much higher than historical standards, it's not 100%. Deleting the FASB rule would probably be suboptimal but suspending it for firms with hard to value securities would be a good thing.

I suggested to a friend last night that the solution to the problem lay in offering the hedge funds and investment banks the opportunity to come under Fed supervision (the rules would have to be different than for deposit banks but still...) and have them pay their dues to the FDIC. The Fed would then guarantee their accounts up to some limit (as with deposit banks) but most importantly, the Fed would temporarily turn a blind eye to the real value of these CDOs and accept them at face value. Then, during the regulatory review process, the Fed and the investment houses would gracefully write down the values of these instruments so that whatever the appropriate hit to the value of these instruments would be spread out over time.

If they didn't want to join the Fed, fine. No bailouts. If you've been exercising fiduciary restraint and are in good shape, fine; continue as is. If not, you'll be a footnote in a history book.

is McCain as the prezzy. If he keeps her, they'll lose big time because (I'm taking a gamble here), I think the American people are smarter than that.

That Geraldine Ferraro was the VP choice of an earlier age. It's not as if Sarah Palin is the first.

Sarah Palin is a Republican which generally means that she is an expert practitioner of power politics. That is how she got where she is; not by understanding issues or understanding governance (which she has done badly) but by practicing the politics of power, and, I suspect by using the well known fact that men can be blinded by a beautiful woman. She is a narrow minded ideologue who has cookie cutter answers to complex questions and an essentially non-existent understanding of the world and other cultures.

The joke is on you sexist types who wanted to support her based solely on the fact that she's a person of the female persuasion.

Financial lesson. If you put $100,000 into an investment with a 10% return, you'll get $10,000 annual income. If, instead, you're only getting $9,000 (because some loans are in default), you're really only getting 9%. But the face return is 10%. So nobody is going to pay you $100,000 for the investment if you want to sell it, they'll revalue the investment to $90,000 and poof! you've lost ten grand and the new owners get the face return of 10%. Actually, if you held it for a year you'd only be out one grand (proof is left as an exercise for the reader).

As I understand these exotic instruments, they have no value per se at maturity. They are simply an annuity and, like a bond, you get your purchase price back.

"The Senate's version of the bailout bill", my ass. This is the same bill that failed in the House with a bunch of other crap added on. It's the same give-the-same-guys-who-caused-this-in-the-first-place-a-boatload-of-money idea presented by the most incompetent administration in the country's history. Do we need to do something? Yes. But we don't need to do just anything. Where are the alternative proposals? Where is the real debate?

This merely proves the Congress is just a load of political hacks whose main job is to keep getting themselves elected. Calling this a tourniquet is giving it too much credit. A tourniquet will stop hemorrhaging, this one won't. It's more like a really expensive band-aid. It probably has Disney characters on it.

The world's economy isn't going to go tits up in the next couple of weeks. We don't want this to go on for long but this isn't an episode of 24.

The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst ever period.

In fact, this male didn't even notice it. Maybe it's because I've lived from coast to coast and border to border in this country and on three different continents. I've heard information delivered in so many accents, tones of voice, phraseology, and languages that I long ago learned to strip out the delivery and pay attention to the payload.

She didn't have one (GOP talking points don't count)

I would describe her as provincial which says nothing about her intelligence but describes the length and breadth of her vision and understanding. That would be short and narrow, respectively. Nothing I heard last night disabused me of my assessment.