Finance Geek

There is a widespread tendency among the advocates of capitalism to believe that when the government regulates one’s own house, that is wrong and an intolerable outrage, but when it regulates the neighbor’s house, that is a necessity, for everyone else is clearly in dire need of regulating. What would the rest of the world do without our benevolent omniscience?

The marketplace is composed of a veritable jungle of goods and services, including novel financial products. Some of these products are unique, possessing properties that must be appreciated apart from nominally similar assets. The notion that a centralized authority can successfully issue one-size-fits-all valuation methods is as preposterous in the realm of financial products as it is in the realm of art or real estate. The imposition of fair value accounting rules—or any accounting rules—by the government or its delegates should therefore be regarded as wrong and dangerous.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 5:14 pm and is filed under RealClearMarkets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.