Unicornomics vs. Mark-to-Market

Barry Ritholz @ the big picture gives us the halftone dots re: mark-to-market and touches on the real bugaboo of bullshit mark-to-model pie in the sky valuation...

That is one of the key elements of the current situation. A decision was made to bypass the broad, deeply traded traditional markets (Equities, Fixed Income, Commodities and Currency) and instead create new markets for new products. No one should be surprised that the net result was a flawed system of garbage paper, with too little room at the exits in case of emergency.

Let's puts this into some context:

"Accounting is a way of portioning economic results by time periods. It doesn’t affect the cash flows, but tries to allocate economic profits proportional to release from risk. If we were back in an era where the financial instruments were simple, then the old rules would work. But once you introduce derivatives, and securities that are called bonds, but are more akin to equity interests, you need to mark them to market."

-David Merkel

Exactly. Otherwise, you are left with public companies, who have made capital allocation and investment decisions that are hidden from their owners (shareholders) and the investing public.

Now that the garbage is on the books, no one wants to admit the original error of purchasing this class of assets. Its not just that the trade has gone bad, its the original buying decision was so flawed even if the trades were not such giant losers.