Category: Review Comments

• College Football Coach Follows Lead of Ponzi Kings – Go Blue. [DB]
• Canadian Deloitte Partner Fined $235k for ‘Shoddy Accounting’ [JDA]
• Mormons Become Victims in $50 Million Scam to Sell Gold Bullion – Mitt Romney was NOT involved. [Bloomberg]
• Wells Fargo Expects to Repay TARP Soon Without New Share Sale – We still haven’t seen a dividend check [Bloomberg]
• Buffett Helped AIG, XL – at a Price – “Both insurers signed so-called cut-through endorsements with a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to offer some policy holders a guarantee that if the insurers couldn’t pay claims, Berkshire Hathaway would.” The man is nothing if he’s not good with money. [WSJ]

• Allen Stanford to undergo heart tests: lawyer – What lengths is this guy willing to go to in order to get released from prison? [Reuters]
• Disney Buys Marvel In $4B Deal – The trickiest thing we foresee is reconciling comics sex with Disney sex. [NPR]
• Least Informative Announcement – Citi isn’t too concerned with telling you what they sold, who they sold it to, for how much, or what they made or lost on the deal. They just thought they would do us all the courtesy of letting us know that something happened. [Floyd Norris/NYT]
• Women, Testosterone, and Finance – “If they discriminate based on testosterone levels, isn’t that the same thing as discriminating based on gender (obvious extreme examples aside…i.e. Vera de Milo types)??” [Accounting Nation]
• AIG’s New CEO Will Do Unspeakable Things To Andrew Cuomo. You Don’t Even Want To Know. [DB]

• Michael Jackson’s Death Ruled a Homicide – Thank the Maker. We’re in need of a circus. [Reuters via NYT]
• MADOFF VICTIMS FIGHT PICARD OVER PROFITS – Yes, because he’s working against you people. [NYP]
• Tech Firms Drowning in Their Options Worthless paper. [CFO]
• FASB Stakes A Claim On Disclosure Of Litigation Contingencies – Let’s just go back to cash basis. Thoughts? [FEI Blog]

• Sir Allen Is Down – And his CFO/Number-maker-upper pleaded guilty. Not what you would call a good day. [DB]
• Swiss Negotiator for UBS Says IRS May Seek More Data – Not satisfied by a measly 5,000 someodd names, the IRS is going back for more. MORE. MORE. [Bloomberg]
• Boeing hopes to fly 787 by year-end – Ten says it doesn’t happen. Takers? [Chicago Tribune]
• US ‘problem’ bank list hits 15-year high – Plenty of time to break more historical marks. [FT]
• IFRS could well fail in the US [AccMan]

• Grant Thornton LLP named one of PINK Magazine’s TOP COMPANIES for WOMEN – Ditto KPMG. [Press Release]
• FDIC Sets Standards for Private-Equity Firms to Buy Shut Banks – Dropped the capital ratio to 10%. Sayeth Chair Bair, ‘We want to maximize investor interest in failed institutions.’ [Bloomberg]
• G.E. Is Shopping Security Unit – Bill O’Reilly conspiracy theory in 3…2…1…[DealBook]
• Microsoft in web photo racism row – That’s not good for anybody. [BBC]
• Recovery rubs off on Freddie, Fannie, AIG – Break ’em up. [FT]

• Unfounded Rumor Of The Afternoon: Dick Fuld Staging Dress Rehearsal For Comeback? – If Fill made his way over to 345 Park to get his 9 box review and you didn’t inform us, we don’t even want to begin to tell you about the wrath that will ensue. [DB]
• White House Raises Long-Term Deficit Forecast – “The Obama administration shaved $262 billion from its estimated 2009 federal budget deficit but said the U.S. will run a $9 trillion deficit over the next 10 years — $2 trillion more than it forecast earlier this year.” Can we all agree that the government needs to quit releasing stats? Great, thanks. [WSJ]
• Brewers Planning to Raise Beer Prices – If you didn’t have an excuse to revolt before, you’ve got one now. [WSJ]
• Bernie Madoff mistress Sheryl Weinstein to send copy of book to scammer in prison – The class on this gal continues to impress. [NYDN]

• Geithner: U.S. Dealings With Goldman Were Appropriate – “We have been forced to do just extraordinary things and, frankly, offensive things to help save the economy,” Mr. Geithner said. “I am completely confident that none of those decisions…had anything to do with the specific interest of any individual firm, much less Goldman Sachs.” We’re done here. [WSJ]
• Informant in UBS Case Gets 40 Months in Prison – That was worth it. [DealBook]
• Humble pie for bust billionaire – He called Russians not in the bil-club ‘losers’. Classy. [BBC]
• Meredith Whitney Predicts More Than 300 Bank Failures – Meh. [Bloomberg]

• ‘Cash for Clunkers’ to End Monday – “The move comes as the department tries to get an accurate accounting of how much money is left in the program, formally called the Car Allowance Rebate System.” Auditors needed? [WSJ]
• Benmosche Says He’ll Rebuild Units to Repay U.S. – That’s a bold statement. [Bloomberg]
• Harold Ramis Answers History’s Most Burning Question – “One Microsoft Excel owner recently speculated that Bill Murray’s character spent a total of eight years, eight months, and sixteen days reliving the same 24-hour period in Groundhog Day.” Okay, which one of you is wasting your billable hours on this? [Vulture]
• The problem with PowerPoint – Where do you start? [BBC]
• In a first, Starbucks lowers price of some drinks – Everybody breathe…Okay, got get one. [Reuters]
• Will Bank Regulators Diverge from GAAP? – Why the hell not? It’s not like anyone wants to converge with anyone else, anyway. [CFO]

• Dispute with E&Y forces Vantis delay – Accountants arguing against auditors. The incestuousness is making us sick. [FT.com]
• UBS to Give 4,450 Names in Settlement – “[The IRS] said the criteria used to select the 4,450 accounts to be turned over is being kept confidential.” [WSJ]
• Scholes, Merton Says Banks Should Value Assets Better [Bloomberg]
• BBVA Likely Winner for Guaranty – “According to people familiar with the auction, the most likely scenario is that regulators would seize Guaranty’s banking unit, Guaranty Bank, and then sell all or most of it to the winning bidder. That is similar to the government’s handling of Colonial Bank, the Colonial BancGroup Inc. unit that failed last Friday and was sold to BB&T Corp.” [WSJ]
• Business to fight SEC director nominations – The most shocking new of the day. [FT.com]
• Citigroup’s Asset Guarantees to Be Audited by TARP – Yesterday’s victims. Here you go. [Bloomberg]

• Brett Favre Returns to NFL, Signs With Minnesota – Look, we don’t like to talk much sports here but would someone do something about this FOR THE LOVE OF GOD? [Bloomberg]
• Backdating Likely More Widespread – “The study identified 141 companies with such advantageous options-granting practices that the researchers concluded they were highly likely to have been involved in backdating. Ninety-two of those companies never were publicly linked to investigations or announced earnings restatements related to backdating.” [WSJ]
• UBS’s American Clients Face U.S. Criminal Probes – “U.S. tax authorities are expected to obtain the identities of potentially thousands of other American UBS clients soon as part of a legal settlement finalized last week between the bank and the U.S. and Swiss governments.” [WSJ]
• Regulators urged Citi to replace CFO – In case you were short on the government meddling in private business affairs news. [FT.com]
• Bernie Madoff’s Greatest Scam Of All – Size matters? Whose size? [Dealbreaker]

• Facebook’s Evil, Genius Plan to Own Your Life – Was there ever any doubt that this was the plan? [The Atlantic]
• Three Indicted in Major Hacking Case – “Three men were indicted Monday on federal charges of conspiring to hack into computer networks of major U.S. retail and financial organizations and stealing data related to more than 130 million credit and debit cards.” [WSJ]
• Sordid Penn Station Needs Overhaul for $9 Billion Tunnel Link –For the love of all that is good and holy why not use $9 billion get the human feces out of there? [Bloomberg]
• A.I.G. to Pay New Chief Executive $7 Million a Year – Seven million times more than the last one. Appears reasonable. [DealBook]
• Federal Prosecutors May Let Andy And Mark Madoff Enjoy Labor Day Weekend – Because it’ll be your last! [Dealbreaker]

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• It’s Official…Accountants are Normal – This woman is looking for an accountant. This could be you. Okay, probably not. [Accounting Nation]
• Postal Clerk Admits $600,000 Stamp Theft – Beats the hell out of using an AK on the co-workers isn’t it? [WP]
• Madoff Feeder Will Auction Assets “Tremont Group Holdings Inc., which lost more than $3 billion in client assets through investments with Ponzi mastermind Bernard Madoff, has reached a deal to auction off the bulk of its remaining hedge-fund assets.” [WSJ]
• RIP, Colonial Bank, and good luck BB&T [JDA]
• Auditor Independence: Will “Crisis” Cause Compromise? [Re: The Auditors]