Accounting News Roundup: MF Global Money "Vaporized"; Record Fraud in UK; Impeach Obama If Bush Tax Cuts Expire?

Money From MF Global Feared Gone [WSJ]
Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation. As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far suggest that a "significant amount" of the money could have "vaporized" as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company's Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, said a person close to the investigation. Many officials now believe certain employees at MF Global dipped into the "customer segregated account" that the New York company was supposed to keep separate from its own assets—and then used the money to meet demands for more collateral or to unfreeze assets at banks and other counterparties as they grew more concerned about their financial exposure to MF Global.

Scams by managers push up fraud cases to £3.5bn, KPMG reports [Guardian]

Cases of alleged fraud in the UK soared by 150% in 2011 to a record £3.5bn, with scams purportedly perpetrated by companies' own management rising in value by 74%. More than 70% of the total was recorded in the second half of the year, according to figures published by the accountants KPMG. Hitesh Patel, a forensic partner at KPMG, said: "2011 was an extraordinary year for fraudsters. The economic uncertainty has been the double-edged sword behind these numbers: companies and government agencies have rooted out more fraud through implementing austerity measures and operational changes, while at the same time the pressures on individuals as a result of the downturn continues to act as a catalyst for more fraud being perpetrated."

Impeach Obama? [National Journal]
NJ What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then [if the Bush tax cuts expire]? NORQUIST Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress

Economic Impacts of Capitalizing Leases: The Elf Study [GOA]
Living up to grumpiness: "Before we lob grenades at the FASB for its lack of support for capitalism, let’s take a closer look at the study and its conclusions. When we do, we find biases and myths that render the report’s conclusions worthless."

For-Profit DeVry Blames New Regulations For a 90% Drop In Net Income [JDA]
Counter-theories are welcome.

Non-stop hiccups only clue to man's heart attack [MSNBC]
In an extremely rare and highly unusual case, constant hiccups turned out to be the man's only symptom of a heart attack. Cases like this are so few and far between that it was last known to occur more than 50 years ago. The gentleman went to the emergency room because he had been hiccuping every 4 to 6 seconds for four days. No matter what he tried, his hiccups hadn't let up, according to the case study in the January issue of the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.