The Washington Post quoted accounting professor Dennis R. Beresford in an article about Wall Street executives laying the blame for recent economic woes at the feet of large firm accountants.
Speaking about fair-value accounting, Beresford said, “It’s intended to be more or less for orderly markets. But we don’t have orderly markets these days. It’s not so much that mark to market has people complaining, but marking to a particular market. Today it’s more kind of fire-sale prices.”