There has to be a better way than this

When, on January 16, Citi chief executive Vikram Pandit unveiled $18 billion of write-downs at the bank’s annual results briefing, he told analysts “we want to be transparent with you on the risks we have” and promised “we will be very candid with you”. But it isn’t easy making sense of the figures, understanding in straightforward terms how big a write-down the bank has taken on precisely what exposures and on the basis of what calculations from observed market prices or proprietary models.