Denninger Fires Back At Whitney On Loan-Book Valuations

``To take a write-up you must first have taken a write-down! Yet that's the problem with all these OptionARMs and other exotic mortgages in particular - they are being carried at insane valuations; the lowest I could find was in the low 80 cent range, and that was at Wells Fargo... This is pure fantasy; these loans are at best worth 50 cents on the dollar and some are in fact worth zero... This entire rally off the 666 lows was fueled by nothing more than accounting fraud writ large. Banks are not modifying mortgages or foreclosing because they have to take the marks if they do. ''