Surely when the banks have done off balance sheet deals it is tantamount to having two sets of books and ?

so illegal...isn't it? Or Is it one law for big business and another for small business? Surely some people should be looking at some jail time?Surely when the banks have done off balance sheet deals it is tantamount to having two sets of books and ?
No, No, No





Banks began to do off-balance sheet deals in order to increase merchant banking fees and provide depository access to compete with investment banks for individual deposits. It started as a way to provide more services while meeting the FASB 157 accounting rule.





The problem was never that the transactions were ';off balance sheet.'; (Your credit card debt is ';off balance sheet.';) The problem was that the same rule made them mark the investments to the market price. In order to maintain liquidity most of the investments were insured against counter party risk. The insurers failed, and the banks has to mark the assets as if they had failed, whether they had or not.