Stress Tests Might Be Pointless, Treasury Declines to Comment on Off-Book-Assets

This report was produced in collaboration with Alternet.

At the center of President Obama's overhaul strategy for Wall Street are the "stress tests" which will be applied to all financial institutions. But how accurate will the test results be? That will depend on whether the treasury takes off-balance-sheet assets into account, experts say.
Back in February, in the House Financial Service Committee, when asked a question about the value of Citigroup's assets, CEO Vikram Pandit provided a less-than-clear response: "It's an extraordinarily difficult question."

Rob Weissman, director of the corporate watchdog group, Essential Action, and author of a new report called Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America, said that, in addition to what Pandit said, there's an additional factor that could fog the test results: off-the-book assets.

The Treasury declined to comment on whether they would be taken into account.

Click to read the whole story on Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/134997

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• economic crisis
• off book assets
• off balance sheet assets
• assets
• weissman
• pandit
• citigroup
• gutierrez
• frank
• bank of america
• jp morgan
• merrill lynch
• stress test
• geithner
• obama
• kashkari
• letter
• hiding
• money
• congress
• oversight
• valuation
• fi

[eyewitness043]

There's no way to find out the value of "troubled assets" because the mortgage industry is built on tolling fee's that make brokers rich and borrowers homeless.

B of A, Countrywide, Citi, etc, and the servicers are looting the tarp by the addition of "unjustified fees" the the total value of "troubled assets" which only serve to artificially induce foreclosure for profit.

There's money in homelessness. Who knew?

This is indicative of Amerikkkan His-story.