How the Treasury Department Cooks the Books on Toxic Mortgages

CNBC ^ | 25 Oct 2010 | Ash Bennington

[epithermal]

Late Friday afternoon, a Bloomberg headline trumpeted the success of The Public-Private Investment Program thusly: "Treasury Gets 36% Return Buying Toxic Mortgages."

-snip-

In paragraph eight, however, the article does eventually turn to the contrarian opinion of University of Louisiana at Lafayette finance professor Dr. Linus Wilson — who cites a far lower return figure: 5.6%.

I spoke to Dr. Wilson earlier today in an attempt to reconcile that discrepancy.

[epithermal]

"An absence of transparency and the use of proprietary data have traditionally generated skepticism from investors. Should that skepticism be any diminished when the entity reporting isn't a private company — but a federal executive department?"

Not diminished, but confirmed.

[servantboy777]

It’s a cryin shame we can’t even trust what our government tells us.