signing off on audit reports – before the audit is done
From Going Concern, there’s an Accounting Age story that reported the Audit Inspection Unit in the UK found that “Auditors have also been accused of altering documents before handing them to regulators and putting cost savings ahead of quality,” but also “The report also found some cases where partners signed audit reports before the audit was complete.”
That makes up about 50% or more of the audits I’ve worked on – public (Big 4) or internal (corporate). No surprises here.
Facebook hated. Sun rises in east.
Facebook, the most visited site on the Internet , may also be the most despised: A new poll says the site scored 64 on a 100-point scale, which “puts Facebook in the bottom 5 percent” of private sector companies “and in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two perennially low-scoring industries with terrible customer satisfaction,” according to results of a survey released today.
I’d say that’s hardly surprising. One of the best ways to make Americans loathe something is to give them no choice in choosing whether or not to use that good/service/etc. It’s one of the reasons that airlines are so detested (you can’t just take any airline to any destination) and cable companies (at least in my area, we have no choice in cable companies whatsoever). Facebook’s rapidly acquiring that “oh, crap, I MUST use this service” feeling – at least to me. I much prefer blogging, twittering and tumblr-ing (whatever the verb is there) but I feel I need to keep a Facebook presence.
pardoning the bankers
William Cohan makes an impassioned plea for a pardon on behalf of a former Goldman Sachs executive. The problem, as you can see from the comments, is that nobody has much sympathy for someone who committed a crime, served four months in jail and then retired to his home in the wealthy suburb of Rye, New York to play golf. There’s a lot of human suffering in the world, and even in the American judicial system, but this isn’t it. You wouldn’t know it from Cohan’s article, though…
But mostly [Bob Freeman] worries about the inexorable march of time, and whether he can ever get back what he lost so suddenly the moment Tom Doonan showed up in his office more than 23 years ago. Whether Barack Obama is a one-term president — as Dick Cheney would have it — or gets a second term, the moment to consider pardons in this administration for those wronged by the judicial system is a ways off. For Bob Freeman that moment cannot come soon enough.
via A Wall Street Witch Hunt – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.
It’s hard to feel sorry for any of these guys – and let’s face it, he did commit a crime.
“I’ll get them out of Tsing Hua”
“As a citizen, I hate it. As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth. If I can’t get them out of M.I.T., I’ll get them out of Tsing Hua” — Beijing’s M.I.T.
via Op-Ed Columnist – A Word From the Wise – NYTimes.com.
After years of being vaguely annoyed by Tom Friedman I’m starting to come around to his opinions in at least one area he writes about: America’s declining infrastructure and educational system. This article was the usual complaint from Friedman about America’s decline and China’s rise and Obama’s lack of attention to it. One quick disagreement: it’s not Obama’s fault. He’s an executive, not a legislator. He can’t pass green laws, or reform education by himself. He needs an agreeable legislative body (and sometimes judicial, too). He could lead more effectively, of course, but that’s rhetoric, not action.
But getting past that, the comment on Tsing Hua by Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, was chilling. I have nothing against China except the itsy-bitsy problem about the autocratic human-rights-abusing government, but hey, what are a few dissidents between “friends,” right? If you look at recent administrations, though, the policy seems to be “whine a bit about human rights but keep on keepin’ on with trade.” You’re faced with two parties whose basic stance on China only differs in the aforementioned rhetoric, but never, ever in specific actions. What can we do? They own most of our economy, anyway.
Back to Tsing Hua: I’m part of a generation that takes the supremacy of American education for granted – at least in regards to higher education. Growing up in a university town and seeing large numbers of Chinese and Indian and Taiwanese and Korean students, I assumed people were desperate to come to the US for education and work. It might be an anecdotal observation, but I’m fairly sure that was the perception if not the reality.
I’ve started seeing college-aged children (friends’ kids or younger relatives) start doing something I would have thought insane 20 years ago: they are considering foreign universities. British and Canadian for the most part but I’m wondering how long it will be before Americans start competing to get into the Tsing Hua’s and Moscow States of the world. It would be a paradigm shift, and a chilling one. There’s no reason to doubt that a shift in the direction of flow of brain power wouldn’t be followed by some of those best-and-brightest staying in their new country. Before you laugh that off, think of the long-term job prospects in America and then think of what the long-term prospects are going to be like building infrastructure and green technology in places like Germany or India or China or Africa or South America.
I lived in Russia for years, so the idea’s not too far-fetched. I just hope for the long-term future of our country that we can make our higher education competitive enough to retain the people we’re going to need: scientists and engineers and “doers” – not just MBAs and English majors.
(I have a MAccy, so I can knock semi-grad education like an MBA).
Harry Markopolos – Math Is Hard
So why doesn’t the S.E.C. hire finance people? Why don’t they hire you?
They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.
via Questions For Harry Markopolos – Math Is Hard – Interview – NYTimes.com.
It is amazing to think that the SEC relies primarily on lawyers. It’s one of the things that annoys me no end about the profession of auditing, too – it’s assumed that anyone (a lawyer, an accountant, a finance manager) can audit. I’ve never seen anyone turn to me and say “hey, you know auditing – you must be able to act as a lawyer when needed, right?”
A certain amount of overlap exists in the professions but by and large the assumption is that any old lawyer can master the sweet science of auditing or finance, because lawyers are clever.
BPA – I’d rather not take a chance, thank you
More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike.
Now it turns out it’s in our food.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Chemicals in Our Food, and Bodies – NYTimes.com.
Darkness on the Edge of Monotown
A resident told a reporter over the summer: “We are eating — excuse me — grass. It’s shameful.”
via Op-Ed Contributor – Darkness on the Edge of Monotown – NYTimes.com.
hard times are a gateway to new careers
For millions of Americans, the recession has been a curse. For a relative few, it’s something more complicated: A catalyst for change. An opportunity to grow. A kick in the butt.
via For some, hard times are a gateway to new careers – USATODAY.com.
the perfect employee, or not
Within a week it was clear that we had hired the perfect employee. He came in early every day, needed very little training and always went out of his way to do something extra. He even offered to drop the mail at the post office on the way home.
Amazing that someone could get away with this? Not really. I’ve seen it several times in my career. It’s not that hard if you have weak financial controls at a company. I even figured out a way I could have done it, once, then pointed it out to the owners. Jaws dropped, but few changes were made because “we have perfect emplooyees!” Sigh.
people who don’t owe tax payments
In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks.
The ranks of those whose major federal tax burdens net out at zero — or less — is on the rise. The center’s original 2009 estimate was 38%. That was before enactment in February of the $787 billion economic recovery package, which included a host of new or expanded tax breaks.
The issue doesn’t get a lot of attention even as lawmakers debate how to pay for policy initiatives like health reform, whether to extend the Bush tax cuts and how to reduce the deficit.
The vast majority of households making up to $30,000 fall into the category, as do nearly half of all households making between $30,000 and $40,000.
from “47% will pay no federal income tax“
I am sure that many people seize on these numbers to (a) claim that the system is unfairly punishing the middle class or (b) people are getting poorer and poorer.
But the tax burden on someone making less than $30,000 is enormous. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes and so on all become substantial. I at least get a deduction on my federal taxes for my property taxes. I can’t even begin to imagine how you can support a family of four on $30,000 a year. Taxing a family like that wouldn’t solve anything, so the 47% number’s more a reflection of the falling real wages in this country.
I am no flat-taxer or teabagger, but I do think a system like this starts creating a bit of a problem, though. If the number of households paying federal taxes keeps rising, you create a substantial proportion of the population willing to shove the tax burden further and further away from themselves. I’d argue that everyone needs to pay at least SOME federal taxes to try and reinforce to everyone that there is a cost to citizenship. If everyone had to pay something, maybe we’d also generate a stronger call for a simpler system. I’d even like to see some – not all – of the federal revenue derived from a national sales tax.
But I am just dreaming. As the article said, let’s spend our time arguing about marginal rates on people earning $200,000 a year and so on rather than coming up with a coherent tax plan that would actually fund the government (and hopefully at the same time encourage the government to cut spending). That would be good. That and kicking that jerk Jon off and enjoying “Kate Plus 8!” with looking at his smarmy middle-aged earring-ed face. Sigh.
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