The tap dance continues

Did you note yesterday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has indefinitely postponed part of its bank rescue plan acknowledging it can't persuade enough banks to sell their bad assets and clean up their balance sheets? This means banks can continue to put off the day of reckoning for marking down the value of bad loans and finally recognizing the dreck that they underwrote and financed. As long as the banks stand pat, the transaction markets will remain gridlocked and everyone can pretend that their losses may not be as big as they are. The gambit is all about holding out long enough for "recovery" to rescue them.