WHY CAN'T WE ALL 'MARK TO MODEL'?

Conspiracy capitalism has taken things to a new level. Have you heard of the expression: "marked to market?" Each day our investments are assigned the value that the so-called free market in their infinite wisdom have decided they are worth. (By the way, there are no more free markets. But that's another story).

The banksters and their bought-up political bedfellows have concluded that it would be best if they just did away with the abovementioned marked-to-market accounting and simply allowed the bankers to decide what their toxic assets are worth. This creative accounting maneuver is called "marked to model." If the market values an over-the-counter derivative at ten cents on the dollar, the bank can now raise the worthless piece of paper to fifty cents on the dollar. Thank you very much, says the bank, whose balance sheet has suddenly miraculously improved.

Inspired by the conspirators, (and remember I have no compunction about calling them what they are), I decided to call up my friendly local banker where I have a modest savings account and the two brokerage companies where I have equally unimpressive stock accounts. As you can probably guess by now, I insisted that they mark my accounts to model. My model. When they inquired what my model was, I told them that it was the one that added several zeroes to each of my holdings.

They assured me that they could not fulfill my request. I was shocked. "But the big insolvent banks, who just received trillions of dollars from the American people, are able to decide what the value of their pieces of paper are, why can't I?" I asked with proper indignation. My answer was the same from all three entities. "The banks are just doing what they do best: shifting the trillions in risk from themselves to the taxpayer." I was told not to worry about it. Everything would turn out OK in the end.

I found an old baby tooth of mine and put it under my pillow for the tooth fairy before retiring for the night.

04/07/2009