the natural-gas business at this critical moment in its history was ripe for mark-to-market accounting abuse. Why? Because the value of a natural gas contract cannot be determined with the same precision that one can determine the price of a share of stock. Sure, you can gauge today’s natural gas price precisely, and with the growth in NYMEX futures contracts, there is even a market price for gas, say, 12 months in the future. But natural-gas contracts might have durations of 10, even 20 years. And who could say with any certainty what the price of gas was going to be 10 years from now at a
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