Mark to Market accounting returns from the dead?

Can it be true?

The Financial Standards Accounting Board appears to be doing a one-eighty on mark to market accounting.

Having let banks declare their assets are worth whatever they want since April, they appear to be changing their mind.

CJR's Ryan Chittum observes:

...the obvious problem with the paper-things-over approach [is] you’re never truly going to get the jitters out of the system until everyone knows where the losses are. Right now, you’re just not going to know if banks are valuing their toxic assets at ninety-seven cents on the dollar, while shoveling them out the backdoor at thirty-five cents—or what.

So FASB’s ingenious approach to the dilemma of mark-to-market vs. mark-to-myth accounting is to let investors see both numbers.

Suffice it to say, the banks aren't happy at all.

I don't think anyone expected the April change to be permanent, but I'm wondering if this short interval was always the plan - or if some bureaucratic tide has shifted.

Interesting.

Late edit: corrected my typo. Thanks AUL.