An excerpt from a WSJ blog:

“Outgoing FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman has had plenty of time to tackle long-standing questions about whether accounting principles are more desirable than specific accounting rules, writes Emily Chasan. The [Read More...]

The FASB’s exposure draft on loan losses is a huge disappointment:

Investors will not be helped by this approach; The numbers produced by the ED will be whatever the bank CEO wants; The wording of the ED [Read More...]

The results of a recent E&Y survey investigating financial manipulation must stun even the most cynical observers of accounting practice,:

Of the board members and senior management surveyed from companies in Europe, Middle East, India [Read More...]

A couple of posts ago, I waded in on the infamous Reinhard & Rogoff spreadsheet error, in an attempt to extract lessons of a cautionary nature for accountants of public companies.

Since then, two interesting [Read More...]

Rob Nance of iShade, the online accounting network, recently interviewed me for his own blog.  With Rob’s permission, I’m repeating (with some minor edits to my responses) his post, below.

* [Read More...]

I have been a habitual spreadsheet user for 30 years, and a Keynesian for, like, forever.  That particular pairing of predilections is probably why I experienced a brief and thrilling shiver of Schadenfreude as [Read More...]

Even if the average citizen might have shrugged with resignation over the Senate’s abandonment of gun control legislation, surely she must be in awe of the power of the NRA to bend democratically-elected [Read More...]

My best insights (but who am I to judge?) come from reading something for which accounting is the furthest thing from the author’s mind:

“My own view is that people tend to underestimate the [Read More...]

One of the items in my inventory of pet peeves when I first started blogging (six years ago!) was interperiod tax allocation, familiarly known as “deferred tax accounting.”  I’ve always objected to it on [Read More...]

Continuing with my theme of the U.S. GAAP/IFRS convergence misinformation campaign being waged by the Journal of Accountancy, the latest and greatest example is an article from the February edition, “What have IASB [Read More...]

In the main, the only reason my wife and I subscribe to magazines and newspapers in hardcopy is because she prefers them.  I much prefer to get as much as possible from the web; [Read More...]

After having just written a post on HP’s massive write-off of goodwill, I am reluctant to keep on banging the drum of how bad goodwill accounting can be.  But, I can’t resist following up on [Read More...]

Companies overpay to acquire other companies all the time; but Hewlett Packard Co. just might be the new record holder for getting fleeced. I don't have the exact amount, but let's say [Read More...]

Over the years, the notion of accounting for "substance over form" has been trumpeted in IFRS circles as the apotheosis of principles-based accounting. From a practical standpoint, something like it is absolutely necessary for [Read More...]

I read numerous news sources this week echoing the SEC's announcement that it finally has a case it thinks it can win against auditors stemming from the 2008 financial crisis. One journalist, [Read More...]