FASB Pretends It Never Voted to Mark Loans to Market
I will have a lot to say about the FASB's recent publication of its proposed revisions to the accounting for loans over the next few months. In particular, I'm going to vivisect the horrendous "basis for conclusions" section of Proposed…
“Double Entry”: A Tale of Two Books
If you are looking to buy a holiday present for an accountant, then you should consider Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance. It's a pretty fast read – both for its moderate length (256 pages) and…
Autonomy: Investors are Entitled to Know what HP’s Management Knows — by New Year’s Eve
Hewlett Packard Co. claims they were 'misled' (to put it mildly) by accounting 'misstatements' (to put it mildly) into overpaying, on the order of $8 billion, to acquire Autonomy. But, if anybody outside of HP has precise knowledge of those…
Off-Topic (But In-Season): Accountants for Peace and Prosperity
The author of this post is Annie Schedrin of the London-based organization Accounting for International Development (AfID). It seems like they do good work where it is much needed. I am always hopeful that educators will share my posts with…
The IASB’s Stages of Grief
The Mary Schapiro era at the SEC is coming to an end without, despite herculean efforts, having moved the ball forward on IFRS convergence. The final denouement was the departure of Chief Accountant James Kroeker on the day before the…
Is Money Market Fund Accounting Fair to Investors?
The purpose of this post is to review a recently published monograph authored by former FASB Chair Dennis Beresford. To summarize, it supports the status quo for money market funds, and I want to explain why I think the reasoning…
Bigger than Loan Impairment – Adjusting Bank Profits for Inflation
We have been covering loan impairment for the past few weeks, and the FASB's proposals leave me with the feeling that we will be discussing it for a long time to come. Once the FASB shoves its post-WWI-Germany-derived "Current Expected…
What Do Accounting Standard Setting and Infrastructure Projects in Southern Italy Have in Common?
In my previous post, I committed to providing a statement of my own accounting principles with newer readers of this blog in mind. I am also adding a few observations about what the process of standard setting has come to…