Illini Pundit points to the key question surrounding the mark-to-market debate. That is, if “value” isn’t pegged to the market, then who decides what value is?

This is one of, if not the THE most disturbing developments of this bailout debacle and it coming from the republican side.  Why would anyone encourage a value other than market value be put on a financial statement?   If so, who would get to determine it?   Just like you should not setup a system that encourages high-risk loans to high-risk borrowers, you should not setup a system to hide fair market value to fool investors.

But isn’t it the very nature of investment that the long-term value over time is more that the immediate market value? And isn’t the real problem that government is the one deciding, via bills like Sarbanes-Oxley, how investments should be evaluated instead of leaving it up to the investors? I really don’t know the answers to these questions.

The trouble is that the government shouldn’t be the