Tax Nonsense
"Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but at least he didn't strike the match. Members of Congress are doing Nero one better. In the middle of the second global financial crisis in two years, Congress is...
View ArticleMary Schapiro's Mythology
Tom Selling (TS) at Accounting Onion, blasts SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro (MS) with respect to her support of IFRS convergence, 26 May 2010,...
View ArticleButchering the Sacred Cow
"This will not be done because Americans do not really want major spending cuts. To demonstrate my point, let us consider America's sacred cow, tax-funded education. ... That would mean expenditures in...
View ArticleTAKS Progress
"Texas schoolchildren generally performed better on the all-important TAKS test this year, but some superintendents, state lawmakers and statisticians are casting doubt on the gains. That's because the...
View ArticleMother of All Bubbles
Jesse has a 16 June 2010 post as Jesse's Cafe Americain, calling the US dollar, "The Mother of All Bubbles". No argument here. Here's a link:...
View ArticleMore Self-Serving AICPA Claptrap
I got an e-mail from the AICPA's "Center for Audit Quality" on 16 June 2010, saying it opposes a permanent exemption for companies with market capitalizations under $75 million from compliance with SOX...
View ArticleCongress Finds Revolving Door
"A Senate panel asked the [SEC's] inspector general to review the agency's 'revolving door,' which shuttles many SEC staffers into jobs with the companies they once regulated. .... Mr. [Charles]...
View ArticleAccounting Onion Almost Makes Me Cry
Tom Selling's 15 June 2010 post at Accounting Onion applies SFAS 52, Foreign Exchange Accounting, giving an absurd result. He slams the SEC, FASB and Big 87654 all at once for this. Good show Tom....
View ArticleWhere's the Crime?
"US authorities arrested Lee Farkas, the high-rolling former chairman of a failed Florida mortgage lender, and charged him with orchestrating a seven-year, multibillion-dollar fraud that contributed to...
View ArticleAre CPAs Racist?
"Thomas Jones decided to go into accounting when a CPA spoke about the profession at his high school's career day. ... But Jones' story is uncommon. African-Americans make up only about 1 percent of...
View ArticleThe SEC and DOJ Fold
"The Justice Department's decision last week to abandon a criminal probe against current and former exectuives at [AIG] underscores the difficulty facing prosecutors who want to hold individuals...
View ArticleJust-In-Time For Disaster
"Car production lines worldwide look set to grind to a halt as the flight ban over much of Europe begins to starve manufacturing of key electronic components. ... The problems highlight industry's...
View ArticleMiddle East Decision Time?
"Yesterday I had an exchange with someone, formerly associated with an American intelligence agency, who claims to be knowledgable about the Middle East. I offered the following view on the Middle...
View ArticleStates Repudiate Pensions
"Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits. ... 'We can't...
View ArticleFinancial Engineering and BP
"In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas...
View ArticleSEC Takes Over Gulf of Mexico
"In the five years before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, federal investigators documented nearly 200 safety and environmental violations in accidents on platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, describing a...
View ArticleTexas Schools Pass Stress Tests!
"Even with such low standards, the Texas Education Agency decided to rate hundreds of Texas schools and scores of Texas districts as 'academically acceptable' last year--the lowest 'passing'...
View ArticleContinuing Wall Street Control of DOJ
"The Justice Department on Thursday announced the arrests of nearly 500 people in what it billed as a nationwide 'takedown' of mortgage scams, many of them directed at homeowners in financial distress....
View ArticleWait Listed By Jail-17
"As far as jails go, the Los Angeles Police Department's gleaming, new Metropolian Detention Center is about as good as it gets. ... The new detention center sits empty because of the city's dire...
View ArticleYves Smith and Junior on TARP
Yves Smith (YS) has a 23 June 2010 post at her Naked Capitalism blasting "Timmy Boy" Geithner's recent comments about TARP's "success". YS's got this knocked. Here's a link:...
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