“The CPA profession had a great run for these past six years,” said Marc Rosenberg, creator of the Rosenberg Survey. “The post-Enron climate created a huge surge in demand for CPA firm services, allowing firms to virtually become order takers. Throttled by a historically low supply of experienced staff, partners worked harder than ever before, and the benefits showed up in their paychecks: Income per partner rose 50 percent since 2003.”
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Can We Stop Pretending That Fair Value Convergence Is Possible?
Anyone okay if we just called this whole convergence thing off? Seriously. We understand that many accountants are perfectionists but healthcare reform seems to have a better chance than this whole shitshow.
Yesterday’s Wall St. Journal claims that the FASB’s biggest wig, Bob Herz is stating, albeit implicitly, that the FASB’s fair value rule will be more strict than the IASB’s. Herz-dog, being a little more political put it this way:
Pleasant disagreement, after the jump
“I hope we can come up with something that both achieves convergence and improves the current state” of accounting rules, Herz said at a roundtable discussion on the fair-value issue at FASB headquarters. “We’re obviously keenly aware of the difficulties of achieving both goals together.”
Herz later said in an interview that while FASB would do its best to harmonize its approach and the IASB’s, “we also want to make sure we come up with a good answer” to improve financial statements that U.S. investors look to.
That’s about as combative as The Herz gets, although, we, like the Journal, will take any chance we can get to embellish otherwise, yawn-worthy comments made by wonky accounting bureaucrats.
More:
John Smith, an IASB member who also participated in the roundtable, said both boards will try to agree on a fair-value rule, but each has its own process to follow, and “at the end of the day, we won’t know until we finish the process.”
The difficulty in harmonizing the two approaches stems from the sharp disagreements over expanding the use of fair-value accounting. Smith called it “a religious war.”
Okay, so we’re not really convinced these guys give a damn either way if accounting rule convergence occurs, especially fair value. So would everyone just knock it off and quit pretending like it’s so bloody important?
Besides, this is a “religious war”. And everyone knows that wars in the name of the Almighty (in this case, GAAP) NEVER end, so let’s just count on this being unresolved through the next millennia.
The PCAOB Wants You to Know That the New Accounting Standards Codification is Not Optional
The PCAOB would like all of you auditors to know that you better learn how to use this Codification thing and quit your bitching about how you don’t like it because they can hear you screeching about how much it sucks.
Nevermind that the P is already making your lives difficult with new rules and leaving lame ducks on their board.
Seriously. Get with the program.
Your 2009 Halloween Costume: Zombie Phil Mickelson
It’s only three days until Halloween and most of you are probably procrastinating on costume ideas. Fortunately we’ve come up with an idea that will incorporate your profession/firm and maybe your love of golf.
Inspiring examples, after the jump
You can go black:
Or white:
Small problem: The only place that we’ve been able to find a KPMG golf hat is on eBay and the auction doesn’t end for four days. Good news is that’s going for grand total of $0.01. So if you don’t already own one of these beauties, it’ll have to wait until next year.