What’s also true, though, as we now know from painful experience, is that any accounting method is susceptible to abuse. And 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
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