Off Balance

The current sovereign-debt crisis in Greece is apparently caused by unfunded off-balance sheet transactions (reportedly aided and abetted by Goldman Sachs ... so what else is new?) I am over seventy years old and I can't remember a single financial crisis, either private or public, which was not caused in whole or in part by off-balance-sheet shenanigans -- last year's banking crisis, Mexico's near collapse in 1994, the Enron scandal, AIG, Tyco, etc. ... the sliminess goes on and on. How can the accounting community, which has created such a beautiful mechanism for faithfully representing the fiscal health of corporations, charities, and public trusts, continue to allow these entities to subvert this process with off-balance-sheet transactions of any type? It is as though the Swan Lake ballet was being danced in a garbage dump ... or Mozart was being played with kazoos.

Until such time as veracity is returned to the accounting profession, we will continue to enjoy a conga-line of financial crises into the forever future. And this, unfortunately, includes how we, as a nation, keep our own books.