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A comment on Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer. Parent comment

Re:Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer by 0x44 on Tuesday September 30, 2008 @09:57PM (#320279) 

  If this holder employed bad accounting (by counting promised dollars as dollars-in-hand), then they may fail as well (and so on).
That's called accrual accounting, and is required by United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, International Financial Reporting Standards, and the UK's Companies Act.
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Re:Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer by mindslight on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @12:09AM (#320370)
What I mean is if the holder only employed such accounting. I can see how such figures are normally useful, but the abstraction can break down when you aren't paid (and in this case, did so catastrophically). If your investment bank wants to survive downturns, it should be factoring this possibility into its decisions.
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