There's suddenly lots of talk about the possibility of a "double dip" recession, as if the economy had ever really emerged from the last downturn. 

Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism does a good job of putting the talk in perspective today. In fact, the discussion is ultimately about semantics.

The International Accounting Standards Board is attempting to change its rule related to accounting for financial liabilities to avoid counter-intuitive results from changes in the credit risk of corporate liabilities.

When a company chooses to value its own debt instruments at fair value, the deterioration of its own credit standing, and therefore the value of its debt, causes gains to be recorded on the income statement. The vast majority of companies that use this rule are banks and the rule exists also in US GAAP.