My parable about GM's earnings-management-driven pension decisions inspired a friend of this blog (let's call him Mark) to share a story from around the same time period. I worked at J. I. Case, the farm and construction equipment manufacturer. As…
Ted's Accounting Question My friend, Ted (not his real name), is the ex-treasurer of a very large public company where he acquired extensive experience in solving accounting problems. He departed a few years ago to run a business that he…
The revenue recognition project has become a mess. Even the AICPA was forced to say as much to the FASB, while at the same time knowing that it would likely kill any prospects of IFRS adoption. But, the AICPA's definition…
It is said that big surprises come in small packages. Last week's "small package" was a brief article in the AICPA's online edition of its Journal of Accountancy, reporting that its own Financial Reporting Executive Committee (formerly the Accounting Standards…
One thing that everyone should be able to agree on is that the accounting rules for measuring and reporting revenue ("revenue recognition") are a huge mess. There are too many of them, and far too many inconsistencies amongst them. One…
I'm a night owl, but once I hit the sack, I'm out like a light for 8-9 hours. In fact, the two things I would say that I do best are type fast and sleep like a log. One recent…