Bernanke calls for political will.

I noticed a distinct difference in what the administration is selling and what Bernanke is advocating. The administration is willing to bail out banks to save the economy but they also want to spend to the hilt to "help" people across the country. I got the impression that Ben was talking about political will to cut back the excessive spending already started by the administration and focus on repairing the banking system. He sounded like he was saying we spend now on the banking system to uplift the entire country but if we can't get the Dems to cut spending and trying to rescue the country with entitlement programs we will never get the banks on their feet. I know the give aways to the public tend to be counter productive but sound like Bernanke believes saving the banks will save the economy or at least get us more stability. Anybody have the same impression?

CNBC trader talk on mark to market

Here is the trader talk article where Bernanke's views on mark to market were mentioned. Click on the title and it will open the Bob Pasani's comments.

Bernanke and mark to market accounting

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said he was against the suspension of mark to market accounting. I have stated several times that doing away with mark to market accounting would be a disaster for the country. Bernanke did make reference to the difficulty of marking long term assets or those assets banks like to label as long term. Since the average mortgage was refinanced every seven years before this credit meltdown, it would be easy to question the value of marking to a 3o year model for any mortgage paper. The banks, in my opinion, have had too much freedom marking their assets and too little transparency.