Mark-to-market, which is part of fair-value accounting, simply means that companies assigning values to assets they hold must value them at current market levels. If something is trading right around $10, it’s given a value of $10, regardless of whether it was bought for $2 or $20. That sounds logical, right? The problem, though, and the reason M2M is getting so many opponents, is that the credit markets are in such a bind now that a lot of securities aren’t selling at all. So, technically, you might have a “market” of $0 for a security. Because of that, there has been a huge movement in recent weeks to repeal, or at least suspend, the mark-to-market accounting standards, which some say are too onerous and have contributed to massive writedowns on banks’ balance sheets. ... M2M opponents got a bit of what they wanted on Tuesday night, when the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an interpretation of Financial Accounting Standard 157, which contains M2M provisions. Just in time fo...