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For many of the financial reporting questions of the day, the right way forward is self-evident and direct. "Build it and they will come," I say. But far too often, policy makers allow themselves to be bogged down by executive-class…

I don't have exact figures, but I'm fairly certain that the AICPA's annual Washington, DC conference on SEC-related developments may be the place where you can find the highest number of accountants crammed into a single hotel ballroom.  And that's…

We have thankfully come to the end of a year in which the gratuitous and repeated attempts by the FASB to converge U.S. GAAP with IFRS have finally devolved from "inevitable" to ignominy.     Yet, standards setting dysfunction will…

Note:  Some very helpful comments on my most recent post have led me to conclude that I made some factual and logical errors.  Fortunately, though, my main message, that stock issuance costs should be recorded as an expense, is not affected;…

(See a correction at the end of this post.) The CFA Institute has recently published a report that summarizes the findings of its member survey on the FASB and IASB's proposals for recognition and measurement of credit losses. The two…

On October 4th, Jon Weil published "An Accounting Lesson for Twitter."  Here's how it starts: Whether he prevails at his insider-trading trial or winds up paying a fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas…

"The new, converged revenue recognition standard will include substantially less industry-specific, “bright-line” guidance than many U.S. companies are accustomed to." [italics added] That understatement is brought to you by the Journal of Accountancy.  It's the lede for a story on a…

Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary, recently gave an interview to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal to mark the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.  More to the point, Mr. Paulson said that he decided to re-issue his book on the 2008…