Congress, unhappy that the experts at the FASB disagree with them, threaten to override the experts. They think they know better! How fucking ridiculous! Congress people are NOT accountants OR professional investors. Why oh why are they messing up a very good system?
Because of pressure by banks. And congress does what the public wants. I submit that any congressman who does the wrong thing, something that is clearly wrong, should be fired. And this is clearly wrong.
The following political pressure was exerted to intentionally tear down FAS 157, an accounting rule that the experts still agree is good, but which just so happens to tell the true story about the awful state of the financial system. Congress wants to change it so that banks appear more solvent than they really are. Regulator independence is threatened.
On March 12, 2009, in the congressional hearing on mark-to-market accounting, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) said "Don't make us tell you what to do, just do it." Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Ny.) said "If you don't act, we will" and also told Hertz that at least one of several bills pending on Congress "will become law before early April" if FASB doesn't act first. One of those laws sets up a Federal Accounting Oversight Board -- a congressionally controlled regulator whose job is to police the FASB, an independent regulator. Independence is going out the window. This can only be bad. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Penn.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, said "If the regulators and standard setters do not act now to improve the standards, then the Congress will have no other option than to act itself."
If either of these three bozos are up for re-election, I urge you to vote against:
Personally I am withdrawing (almost) all of my investments in US based companies and companies which report in US dollars.