Should banks be required to clearly state any off balance sheet activities?

Students should review their lecture notes and participate in the discussion of the following:

1) Should banks be required to clearly state any off balance sheet activities? Should banks be required to hold reserves against their off balance sheet activities?

2) Should governments purchase the devalued paper so that financial institutions can clean up their balance sheets and prevent a collapse of the financial system?

3) Should governments seize the insolvent banks and operate them until private buyers can step in?

4) Should governments regulate investment banks and private equity funds and hedge funds? If so, would this regulation have to be international in scope?

5) Should governments regulate the compensation schemes of the senior managers and traders in financial institutions?

6) In a crisis, should financial institutions be required to mark to market?

7) Should credit rating agencies be regulated?

8) Should governments regulate mortgage terms and security conditions?

9) Has globalization created the ineviatability of global contagion in financial crises?

10) Did the financial crisis make a recession inevitable?

Use your own words.

Please support your statements with relevant resources from the textbook, the financial press, or the academic articles. In order to get full credit, students need to read other posts, interact with their peers in the discussion board, answer to the posted discussion question thoroughly, make a new point that was not emphasized by earlier posts, and follow up with their peers and the professor for any comments/questions on their original post.