Since the 1930s, accountants and bank regulators have recognized the inherent weaknesses of mark-to-market accounting.

Enormous losses could have been avoidedif the SEC and the FASB had recognized that mark-to-market accounting should not be used when there is no active market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission should suspend mark-to-market accounting.

According to recent press reports, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering releasing a controversial proposal to impose additional capital and liquidity regulations on the $2.7 trillion money market fund industry (MMMFs) and to replace the fixed $1 net-asset value ("par value") rule now used by all MMMFs to redeem customer funds with a mark-to-market (NAV) requirement. 

Though no longer a Cold War rival, Russia continues to pose immense challenges for the United States. The Kremlin’s perception of Russia as an “independent pole in a multi-polar world” often results in Russian policies that place the country at odds with the West. Russia’s current political elites are determined to prevent—and in some cases roll back—color revolutions in the former Soviet Union. They fear that successful democratization on Russia’s periphery will rouse similar demands at home. Regardless, the Kremlin’s ineffective authoritarian governance has stimulated a wave of large-scale protests in recent months that likely mark the beginning of Russia’s transition away from the Vladimir Putin era.

It is time to follow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and suspend mark-to-market.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, large nonbank firms may be declared systemically important because their failure will cause a systemic breakdown. In effect, this amounts to a government statement that these firms are too big to fail.

When the bubble deflated in 2007, an unprecedented number of weak mortgages went into default - those that were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, and those that had been securitized by Wall Street. This drove down housing prices and threw Fannie and Freddie into insolvency.