The trend to IMIU accounting is creeping from China to the west coast. IMIU accounts buried in the balance sheet produce good looking results
IMIU’s are I Made It Up accounts
What you describe is clearly illegal under Sarbanes-Oxley, and if a US company does it, the CEO and the CFO will be sent to jail.
In an April 3, 2010, op-ed for the The New York Times, Burry argued that anyone who studied the financial markets carefully in 2003, 2004, and 2005 could have recognized the growing risk in the subprime markets.[11] He faulted federal regulators for failing to listen to warnings from outside a closed circle of advisors.[11][9]
It's a frightening trend. It wasn't so long ago that financials from the Chinese were universally considered a joke punch line.
Now they're becoming a standard?