marked to make believe
adj.— «For example, a financial asset traded on multiple exchanges might be considered a Level 1 market. At the other end of the spectrum, “Level 3,” no ready market exists to value assets or liabilities. A reporting unit or a business could, for example, qualify as Level 3 in the fair value hierarchy. The introduction of this Level 3 category into the accounting lexicon has recently led some to cry foul, as it is extraordinarily difficult to ascribe fair value to something nobody has recently tried to sell or buy. It’s even more challenging when the owner of the asset or liability has an inherent conflict in determining the outcome of the valuation. This conflict has led some to joke that such measurements are not “marked to market,” but are instead “marked to make believe” or “marked to myth.” » —“Mark to Market, or to Myth? FAS 157 Worries” by Collen Cunningham Compliance Week Sept. 25, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
John in Cincinnati, Ohio, says that if something seems unsurprising to him, he’ll say sarcastically Color me surprised. John is sincerely surprised to learn that the color me X construction, where X is any adjective, goes back to a 1962 bestseller...
Matt in Beloit, Wisconsin, reports that when he was in high school back in the 1990s, he and his friends used the word biscuit in phrases like I feel like a biscuit or I bet you feel like a biscuit now, the idea being that someone said something...