What we do now is the auditors did not tell us the banks are bust
And that was not just incompetent, it was negligent
Erm, actually, the auditors went to the government and asked “Will you support the banks if it all goes pear shaped?”.
To which the answer was “Yes”.
Upon which was based the statement that the banks were going concerns.
That’s right, I remember checking this myself in parliamentary committee evidence.
Ritchie has quite a bit of trouble with basic accounting concepts. Going concern is just one of them.
It’s why lefties think he’s an expert.
I must admit I shared Ritchie’s point of view for some time – not the going concern concept – but that the auditors were negligent in not qualifying their reports for actual potential losses or the pointing out of contingent liabilities.
But I have heard, anecdotally, of course, that the assurance given by GB was that an erroneous audit report, i.e. a clean bill of health, would have no consequences in the UK and that a similar assurance was given in the US.
This makes sense, because for a bank, anything other than a clean audit report is the kiss of death.
Wasn’t it that Brown changed the rules on recognition of future losses on current lending so as to boost current tax take at the expense of future revenue and conceal the extent of the deficit he was running?