The fight over fair value continues with a Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable set to look at the fair value, or mark-to-market issue. As CNN suggests, we can expect to see some fireworks. Similarly, the chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, Sir David Tweedie, has been summoned to Westminster, to discuss fair value. And as Financial Week notes, the future independence of the financial accounting Standards Board might be at stake here. It reports some scathing comments from the former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. William Isaac. "The current worldwide crisis in the financial system demonstrates that major principles of accounting are much too important to be left solely to accountants."

Of course, there was none of this talk when markets were booming. The world's banks generated enormous profits, and massive bonuses along the way, as bankers cashed in on fair value upswings in asset prices. Indeed, no institution has ever told bankers they should lend them less money because their forecasts were super confident. But it's a different picture when securities and trades are in trouble. Valuing an asset becomes problematic when the value has collapsed and the assets are marked to a bargain basement price, or worse still, when there is no market for it at all. Even more difficult when companies have to measure fair value based on the exit price of an asset and liability and a hypothetical third party's value placed on that asset or liability.

But as reported by CFO.com, vice chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, Thomas Jones says, there is no alternative. Jones said: "It is a lousy system, but it is less lousy than any other system ... and I don't find that the people who criticize fair value have very good ideas for an alternative...I don't hear too many sane people saying scrap fair value and go back to historical cost."

As Jones suggests, maybe the fault lies with the banks using consolidation and de-recognition of off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities, and related disclosure requirements. The problem here lies with disclosure.