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Ken Lewis Should Have Been a CPA

KenLewisNOPEb.jpgWe know public accounting is hard. The unpaid overtime (*cough* perhaps PwC can tell you about that *cough*), busy season, the misconception that all CPAs are number-crunching mathletes, and, of course, the inconvenience of having to answer everyone’s obscure tax questions. “Dude, I don’t even WORK in tax, I’m an auditor.” “Yeah but I just have this quick question about a deduction…”
As bad as the CPAs may have it, they’ve got it easy compared to this guy. Poor Ken Lewis. Someone invite him to waste a few years in public accounting please, he’s getting pounded from every angle over here, poor bastard.
Let’s check the timeline – please compare to your busy season and see who has it worse if you’re still regretting your decision.
More on KL’s banner year, after the jump


Ken Lewis’ year started sucking in January after the Merrill bonus scandal erupted. This got NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on his back, eventually leading to the Fedgate scandal in which Lewis claimed Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson “threatened” the Bank of America CEO or kept him on a short TARP leash or some such “OMG did he really just say that?” revelation. He’d already come off a pretty rough year previous but you already know that story.
Bernanke and Paulson didn’t take getting fronted off too kindly (we can only assume) and Lewis hasn’t really gotten a break since. The guy couldn’t even sell his Porsche without feeling the heat. Now a judge is blocking the $33 million settlement he’d love to make with the SEC and some Citigroup reject is being groomed as his replacement. Burn. Oh, and then there are the JP Morgan analysts saying Bank of America will service the loans that TBW cannot since, well, it was raided by Federal agents and barred from making loans by the FHA.
So how bad do you really have it? We told you it could be worse. Next time you’re out there ticking and tying wondering how in the hell you’re going to spend the rest of your life that way, just think about Bank of America and remember you could be Ken Lewis right about now.
What we’d really like to know is: will Lewis be able to limp along for the next 3 years and make it to retirement before totally flipping out?

Your AICPA Dues at Work

stephen-colbert.jpgWe know you’re all worried about the financial regulation overhaul because it may just make your lives more of a living hell. PCAOB, IRS, state accountancy boards, etc. are bad enough but no, we could all be looking at more alphabet soup (in this case the Consumer Financial Protection Agency) in the name of political grandstanding.
Fear not. The bastions of accountant lobbying, the AICPA, is all over this like Barry Salzberg at a Rogaine convention.
Continued, after the jump

[AICPA Chairman, Bob] Harris argued that the proposed legislation creating the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Act, was overly broad.
“The definition of ‘financial activity’ in the bill is so broad as to include many services that CPAs routinely provide to their clients in accordance with a very strict regulatory and oversight regime,” he said. “The bill would result in redundant regulation of CPAs and CPA firms that are already subject to appropriate and significant oversight by the IRS, Treasury, state boards of accountancy, and professional and ethical standards for the AICPA’s members.”

Sweet Jesus, Bob. We actually agree with you on this. The situation sounds oddly similar to the situation the brain trust in DC is trying to fix now. Too many regulators let the sketchy stuff fall between the cracks and now we’re in economic no man’s land. Add more
Who knew that there was common sense being shoveled around in the halls of Congress? The problem is, we’re certain the amount of bullshit being shoveled outweighs the common sense by an exponential margin.
AICPA Wants CPAs Exempted from Consumer Agency [Web CPA]