The "Other" Real Estate Issue- Revisited

`` Although we do not detail the quantitative numbers in the chart, over the last four quarters (3Q 2008-2Q 2009) the index has recorded a 22.5% contraction in value. And just what does this infer about bank holdings of CRE loan paper? Thanks to the current Administration’s financial sector “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for bank assets, we’re not going to really know any time soon. Good thing the US banks can simply move forward reporting record earnings and ignore the current inconvenient truth of declining CRE values, no? We only see some glimpse of the truth in asset values every Friday when we see that week's US bank failures. Did you catch how BB&T wrote down Colonial Bank asset values by 37% after Colonial's essential failure and melding into BB&T? The write down never happened until Colonial hit the tarmac nose first, yet asset values had vaporized long ago. And this is the "transparency" we've been promised?''