Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jvbigo who wrote (95915)	7/30/2008 9:47:58 AM
From: stan_hughes	Respond to of 110194

I too have heard these China stories -- Japan and Korea also -- but I doubt we will ever find out much, since for the most part they will deal with it internally to avoid embarrassment BTW it isn't just the banks who are still hiding their losses -- it's anyone and everyone who bought CDOs (or their equivalent) who remain in control of their own record keeping and therefore enjoy being in a position of "not having to fess up unless it blows up" -- and maybe not even after it blows up Besides innumerable smaller private or state banks all over Earth, that group would include a lot of hedge funds with their loosey goosey reporting, plus untold numbers of private funds, endowments and foundations who don't have to publicly report their financials because they're not subject to such regulation But think about it for a minute -- even if you did finally get an account statement from Howie's Hedge Fund, or an annual report from your local Main Street College, what level of detail do you think you'd see? And even if they were forthcoming enough to individually show that they hold an investment in The First Quantum Shaky High-Yield Fund, would anyone be able to tell if the valuation was being overstated since there's no market for the units? And how about institutions where the Treasurer was just quietly fired, and now there doesn't seem to be much investment income anymore? Think there might be a few CDO skeletons on the books? The only line of defense against this stuff under western accounting standards would be auditors refusing to sign off in fear of being held liable later, but that's a pretty thin line. What it will take to smoke them all out is many quarters of sitting with "assets" on the books that don't earn anything, and it's anybody's guess how long that will be allowed -- all of which contributes to my expectation that we could be in for several years of this deception