Last August, I wrote a post in which I expressed my dismay that Carl Levin (D-Michigan) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are trying to make tax law based on the premise that FASB rules for stock options are caviar -- when…
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…
As told to me by a faculty member at Ohio State, who heard it in a presentation by Eugene Flegm, former general auditor for General Motors: Some years after the end of World War II, GM was negotiating a new…
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…
"…[W]e know there are going to be challenging issues to resolve under any [IFRS] incorporation decision. The issues of LIFO and contingencies immediately come to mind. But even with all of this, I would offer up one final thought for…
My writings in this blog have focused on the absence of linkages between financial reporting and the economic concepts like wealth and value creation/destruction. But, accounting is more than applied economics. Individuals acquire accounting information before making decisions; and heuristics…
schI get a lot of questions – and yes, some criticism – of my support for measurement of assets and liabilities at "replacement cost" (with comparative periods adjusted for the effects of inflation). My views are derived in large part…
No one likes to be told they are irrelevant, but that was my first reaction to Bob Jensen's AECM post, in which he dubbed me the "Losing Cause Man of the Year." I am certain that Bob meant it as…
I was in Minneapolis a couple of months ago, and my client was kind enough to put me up in a very swanky hotel near its offices. While waiting for my dinner at the lobby bar (I don't like to…
When I was at the SEC (1992 – 93), one of the senior staff members whom I admired greatly for his competence and integrity was Robert Bayless, the Chief Accountant for the Division of Corporation Finance. ("Corp Fin" is the…