You know those friends who don't celebrate their birthday, rather they celebrate their birthday week? That's basically what we've got here with the Financial Accounting Foundation's announcement that there will be all kinds of reminders of the FASB's fortieth anniversary:
[A] variety of events and activities intended to highlight the important role that the FASB — and, beginning in 1984, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board — have played in making financial reporting more meaningful, useful and transparent for users of financial reports, including investors, lenders, taxpayers, citizens and others.
It's every person or private-non-profit-rulemaking organization's right to celebrate a milestone in age and, yes, maybe even noteworthy accomplishments. And yes, in rare cases a couple of separate events may be necessary because of scheduling conflicts, but don't expect anyone to show up to more than one event. That's just presumptuous.
But what we’d really like to see him have a conversation with Barry Minkow about how that Barry thinks the Congressman’s report on Goldline International is unmitigated bullshit:
Friend of GC, Tracy Coenen participated in the Minkow’s investigation and she presents the findings over at Fraud Files Blog. Here’s a sample:
• Allegation: Weiner criticizes Goldline because of complaints on the website Ripoff Report lodged by consumers who say Goldline representatives improperly hold themselves out as investment advisors.
• What Weiner didn’t tell you: Ripoff Report says (in response to the consumer complaints) that you can feel completely confident doing business with Goldline. Weiner gave us only half of the story in his report.
Allegation: Goldline grossly overcharges for its products
What Weiner didn’t tell you: Our sampling of coins listed in the Weiner report showed that Goldline’s prices were very comparable to those of six competitors. He also forgot to mention that companies are free to set whatever prices they like for their products.
Allegation: Goldline says they’ll buy back your gold and silver, but doesn’t “guarantee” that
What Weiner didn’t tell you: It is against the law for Goldline to offer a buyback guarantee. If they offered such a guarantee, they would be in violation of securities laws because their salespeople are not licensed broker dealers.
Regardless of how you feel about Glenn Beck, gold coins, or Anthony Weiner’s Fox News-esque ability for interrupting, it kinda sorta sounds like the Congressman’s investigators don’t know a non-fraud when they see one. Besides, we’ll take the word of a convicted-felon-turned-fraud-buster over any report that comes out of Congress. Especially in an election year.
A message left with Congressman Weiner’s spokesperson was not immediately returned.
