Banks argue for keeping stuff off their balance sheets

Ever wonder why your credit report shows every little slight detail about you, but banks and corporations don't have to account for various items on their balance sheet - even when they are publicly traded companies?

From Reuters:

"If you get off-balance sheet treatment, that provides a more efficient use of your balance sheet and has been the foundation of the structured finance market. Bringing it back on balance sheet would have an impact on all your various financial ratios," said Mike Kagawa, portfolio manager at Payden & Rygel.

Duh, really?! And that transparency is bad?

The article continues:

Industry experts said the accounting changes threaten to setback the huge strides made by the Fed's emergency loan program, the Term Asset-Backed Securites Loan Facility, known as TALF, launched earlier this year.

Through the program, the Fed was able to bolster consumer lending and reopen the securitization market for consumer ABS, nearly shutdown by a deep credit crisis in 2008. The program also drove the high costs of funding dramatically lower.

In case you forgot, TALF is the $1T, note the T, program the Federal Reserve is using to bail out the dealers of the program... I'm sorry, I mean the companies who securitize loans to keep it functioning.

In other words, the market imploded, without the Federal Reserve's $1T it would not be working and "the banks" want to keep the accounting the same.