European Central Bank Executive Board member Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerel insists that fair value is useless in illiquid (read: dysfunctional or non-existent) markets, putting forth the all-important query “what is the use of marking-to-market when there is no market?” in a Paris speech yesterday.
Tumpel-Gugerel is also a tad concerned that the push for convergence around the globe by 2011 could mean compromised accounting standards. “The ECB strongly opposes a full fair value approach,” she said. “In this context, convergence should not come at the expense of high-quality accounting standards.”
The ECB has taken the financial crisis as a lesson in valuation, guidance, and a deft accounting system that leaves plenty of slack available for adjustments should the need arise in, say, a crisis situation. That’s all well and good but guidance only gets you so far and without a firm commitment to when and how to use fair value around the globe, we can pretty much keep debating this point indefinitely.
Her views on FASB’s fair value approach are not at all subtle. In short, it appears as though the ECB supports convergence but only if the idiotic American ways are better aligned with the IASB’s. “With regard to recent assertions made by the IASB and FASB that convergence is on track, I would like to highlight that we are not so optimistic,” she said. “In this regard, putting in place a reconciliation mechanism that simply discloses figures at amortised cost and fair value for each item on the balance sheet would certainly not achieve the aim of convergence.”
Well snap, guess she told us.
Elements for intervention on accounting issues [ECB]
In 2017, I made $29 as an tax intern at big daddy D but I am not sure where I was in the range of compensation for interns at that time…but in today’s economy I think $30 is very low. $40 seems fair considering how much starting salaries have grown in the last couple of years.
Cut your losses and jump ship.
Long timer CPA
With master’s in taxation and other master’s degree in business, I believe working for a CPA firm is a loss of time.
Unfortunately, time is the only valuable assets you have if you are not one of the chosen in the firm because of personality, revenue, shear ability, labor on fixed salary or nepotism, then you lose as the firm will always monitor utilization and profit per employee. You become less useful and a fixed cost, thus management team never tries to expand $$/hour or deeply train skills of underlying’s because it’s all about being a highly paid partner and making a trip to the deposit box. And that deposit timeframe only last so long and they know it.
Not necessarily defending PwC, but maybe keep in mind a few things: (1) These are college students, not graduates. (2) Many internships and summer jobs pay substantially less (even minimum wage). (3) There’s a lot of fluff in Big 4 internships, like group trips to fun locations, “community projects,” etc.
It’s not like PwC is going to make any real money off work performed by interns. It’s ultimately just a cost center for the firm, to try & recruit a fresh class on new hires when they graduate.