Blankfein says mark-to-market rule not to blame.
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., delivered a speech Tuesday to the Council of Institutional Investors’ spring meeting in Washington. The whole speech is worth a read, but accountants will zero in on this passage:
Financial institutions didn’t account for asset values accurately enough. I’ve heard some argue that fair value accounting — which assigns current values to financial assets and liabilities — is one of the major reasons for exacerbating the credit crisis. I see it differently. If more institutions had properly valued their positions and commitments at the outset, they would have been in a much better position to reduce their exposures.
Full text here.
