Successful implementation of a principles-based approach is, however, dependent on cultural changes occurring in the accounting and auditing profession and effective oversight. Without these two factors, a principles-based system could easily be used as the basis for manipulating financial information for reasons other than improving its quality and transparency.
Almost everybody seems convinced that what we have been going through in recent months is actually the beginning of orderly winding down of global imbalances, though neither the length nor the depth of the process can be predicted with any precision yet!