Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments at the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday. During that speech, Bernanke weighed in on "mark to market" accounting, saying the following:

"The ongoing move by those who set accounting standards toward requirements for improved disclosure and greater transparency is a positive development that deserves full support. However, determining appropriate valuation methods for illiquid or idiosyncratic assets can be very difficult, to put it mildly. Similarly, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the appropriate levels of loan loss reserves over the cycle.

"As a result, further review of accounting standards governing valuation and loss provisioning would be useful, and might result in modifications to the accounting rules that reduce their procyclical effects without compromising the goals of disclosure and transparency. Indeed, work is underway on these issues through the Financial Stability Forum, and the results of that work may prove useful for U.S. policymakers."

The problem with the banks isn't all the bad securities and loans they're loaded up with. The problem is that the industry doesn't want to acknowledge that today's prices are the market prices. The valuations are not correct; they are not hitting the bids. They do not want to admit reality. And, there are not checks and balances in place to MAKE reality the touchstone for determining valuation.

If you think that financial institutions have no clout, read about the mind twisting efforts engendered by throwing financial money to lobbyists in order to get their way.

"Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," a report released last week by the nonprofit citizen's group Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation finds that "from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.7 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation."