Eric Schliesser — When the Financial Insiders tell you the accounting numbers are (ahhh) made out of thin air

Parsing Emilios Avgouleas and Charles Goodhart on the noble lie about finance and accounting.

Fourth, the reason why they think it's problematic that "published accounting valuations" are not stable is not because, say, all risk models are, thereby, based on epistemic mirages, but, rather, what needs to be prevented is that "the general public" starts the doubt the integrity of published valuations. That is to say, the public needs to stay in the dark about the truth about these numbers (because if the public loses confidence we risk more extensive crises). If keeping the shoddiness of accounting secret from the public serves the public's genuine good, one may call this a a species of Platonic noble lies. But other terms also spring to mind.

Digressions&Impressions
When the Financial Insiders tell you the accounting numbers are (ahhh) made out of thin air
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences