Mark-to-market accounting should be suspended, “at least for now,” said Robert L. Reynolds, president and CEO of Putnam Investments.
Mr. Reynolds, following a speech to the Boston Chamber of Commerce this morning, said the downward spiral of capital markets had been accelerated by the reintroduction of mark-to-market accounting in 2007.
He said a suspension would help markets “artificially hit” by the requirement to write down the value of “money-good assets” to reflect the lowest short-term value in the marketplace.
Mr. Reynolds said one-time financial heavyweights upended by the financial crisis, such as Lehman Brothers Holdings, might still be in business were it not for mark-to-market accounting requirements.
In both his speech and a subsequent question-and-answer period, Mr. Reynolds said he was open to the idea of briefly nationalizing some big banks as a means of resuscitating credit as quickly as possible.
Mr. Reynolds also said the type of confident leadership President Franklin Roosevelt displayed, inspiring confidence during the Great Depression, is regrettably lacking in Washington now, adding that “uncertainty is even more paralyzing than mistaken policy” at this point in time.
