Opposite Man

When your party's ranking member on the House Budget committee tells the world the real problem with the economic crisis is that banking rules "were too Liberal" then you have officially exhausted any and all remaining credibility you have on the issue.

When you have mark-to-market accounting in a downward economy, in a spiraling balance sheet economy, that means those reserves have to grow, that means you can't lend as much.

So we need to fix the mark-to-market rules, either suspend them, go to a six- or a one-year rolling average. It's these mark-to-market rules that are taking these balance seats of these banks downward and preventing them from lending.

So rather than changing the capital requirements, which were too liberal in the last, you know, 10 or so years, let's fix the rule that caused it in the first place, and that's mark-to-market.

Yes, the accounting rules that allow you have fair and real numbers for your assets rather than making complete bullshit up are the problem according to the GOP, not the fact that banks have been habitually lying about their assets since the repeal of Glass-Stegall ten years ago.

The problem isn't your car is on fire, the problem is the mechanic has to honestly tell you your car is on fire, and that you can't play pretend anymore.