If You Can't Win, Cheat

If you can't cheat, start a fight... then change the rules.

The Financial Acounting Standards Board, released FASB Staff Position No. 157-3, Determining the Fair Value of a Financial Asset When the Market for That Asset Is Not Active.

The Law of Gravity has been repealed.

How do you determine fair value of a financial asset, when the real value ($0.00, give or take a few cents on the dollar) is unacceptable to your current situation? You make it up. The market for CDO's is inactive, making the assets almost worthless? No matter, just guesstimate what the value will be at some later date.

Try the same hocus pocus next time you're at the grocery store. When you get to the register and the cashier tells you that the milk, ground beef, brocolli, cheddar cheese, potatoes and cookies total $18.48 - remind her/him that in a few hours you'll have digested the food and it will leave your body in the form of worthless, stinky poo.

And that's all you're willing to pay.

Apples always fall back to Earth.

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The DOW took off like a bottle rocket and closed up 936 points to 9,387.