What is it about Full Disclosure that's so Hard to Get (and to Do)?

Here I am again, on my favorite soapbox. Well, one of my favorite soapboxes.

Andrew Ross Sorkin has an excellent column in today's New York Times about banks' attempts, as he puts it, "to pull a bunny out of a hat" and make their earnings statements look better than they really are. For example, Bank of America trumpeted its most recent quarterly results ... but neglected to point out that there was a big one-time gain from the sale of its stake in China Construction Bank, and oh yes, there was that valuation of Merrill Lynch assets, which were acquired last year, that was higher than the valuation Merill Lynch had used.

Guess what? The investors who follow financial stocks weren't impressed. Bank of America is now trading around $7 a share -- better than it was in late February, I'll grant you, but less than a year ago it was trading above $40.

Sorry to pick on BoA (actually, I'm a retail customer, and as such have no complaints). But really, how stupid do they think we all are?

It was this sort of dopey financial shenanigans that got this whole crisis started. Wouldn't it be terrifically refreshing to read an earnings report that, as Sorkin says, "could fit on the back of an envelope, with no asterisks and no fine print"? Wouldn't we applaud that company, even if the results were pretty ugly, for facing its situation directly (and showing us the plans to do something about that situation)?

I know that full disclosure is hard -- it's hard for most of us to admit to mistakes, even little ones like forgetting a thank-you note, or inadvertently bumping into someone in a checkout line. Sometimes "I'm sorry" feels like the hardest thing in the world to say. But if you try it, you'll find that it's refreshingly empowering.