Ever since I read Malcom Gladwell's acclaimed new book, Outliers: The Story of Success, I have been thinking about its many policy implications. The main message of the book is that highly successful people owe much more than one would…
Since my previous post on the FASB's 3 - 2 vote to finalize the investor-indifferent FSP EITF 99-20-1, I have received a number of comments regarding the extent to which board size and composition have affected financial reporting standards. Alpha…
Do you think that stable funding could allow the IASB to divorce itself from the influence of the EU? If so, consider the example the FASB is setting under similar circumstances, and think again. The U.S. standard setter was granted…
Following my most recent post on financial statement presentation, Eddie Thomas, a frequent commenter of this blog, wrote: "Wouldn't investors be better off pushing for a more robust XBRL so that they can make their own decisions about what is…
Two readers, including Robert Bloomfield, Cornell accounting professor (my alma mater!) and Director of the Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative (FASRI) of the FASB, were kind enough to point out an error in my previous post. Here is the gist…
This past October, the FASB and IASB issued a joint discussion paper with their preliminary views on financial statement presentation: "[The IASB and FASB initiated the joint project on financial statement presentation to address users' concerns that existing requirements permit…
"The London Symphony played Beethoven last evening, and Beethoven lost." That quotation, which my father attributed to George Bernard Shaw, leapt into my mind as I read Marie Leone's CFO.com report of remarks made by Thomas Jones, vice chairman of…
The trustees of the IASC Foundation (the oversight body of the IASB) have continued to blithely plug IFRS as if it were just an innocent bystander in the global financial crisis. Just days before the G-20 economic conference, the IASC…
Although the FASB's record as accounting standard setter is far from spotless, I can't think of a single action taken where the quality of information provided to investors unambiguously diminished. That's what makes the IASB's amendments to IAS 39 so…
As I mentioned in a previous post, PCAOB member Charles Niemeier delivered a tour de force critique of U.S. efforts to adopt IFRS, at a recent New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA) educational event. To its credit, the NYSSCPA's…