What Are the IASB and FASB Smoking?

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

[T]he tediously-reported proclamation of real convergence commitment has never been more than a smokescreen behind which the divergent interests of the Americans and the Europeans have knocked heads to the point of insensibility. (For which, recall the continued fudging of the SEC as to whether, if ever, that agency is even going to confirm a date certain on which to decide if to weigh in or not […].) Why no-one has called the question on this endless charade reflects the two-level fantasy in the dialog: the IASB and the FASB both pretend to believe in the desirability of fully-converged accounting standards, and the community of financial statement issuers and users pretend to believe them. [Re:Balance]

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Five Questions with Sara McIntosh

Sara McIntosh’s (a pen name) blog is described as “Devoted To Rocking the Worlds Of Finance, Accounting and Auditing.” And if you’ve read any of her posts you’ll know that by “Rocking” she means in the carnal sense.

She is a lifelong writer and accounting/finance industry expert and entrepreneur. After earning an MBA at Northwestern, she started her own finance and accounting consulting business specializing in acquisitions, implementing worldwide accounting systems, haltingg systems malfunctions in global financial operations.

Having conquered all her professional goals she now focuses on writing, having completed her first novel Shell Games in the Summer of 2009. She is currently working on her second novel, Tricks of the Trade.


Accountants are . . .
Sexiest when thinking outside the box.

What are your three must-read accounting blogs and one must-read non-accounting blog?
• Francine McKenna’s posts here at GoingConcern and at her own blog, re:TheAuditors – There is no one else that I’ve read that tears apart the accounting essentials from complex 10Ks and 10Qs and scours board minutes to report on the indisputable facts about frauds and other financial shenanigans behind the recent financial crisis and pointing toward future blowouts waiting to happen.

• Professor David Albrecht’s The Summa – Hands-down his posts are the most interesting briefs on everything you need to know about accounting standards. That world is going through some crazy, most-likely-not-in-out-best-interest changes right now and he is one of the few voices in the industry trying to stop the decline in U.S. financial reporting standards.

• Edith Orenstein’s FEI (Financial Executives International) blog – What can I say, Edith is everywhere! If you only could go one place to find out everything going on in the accounting, finance and audit industries her blog posts would be the place to go, period.

• Chris Brogan – He blogs about blogging and other social media galore. He is an amazingly high-energy, extremely warm and witty guy—and it comes across in his posts, making them all the more memorable. He also has a best-selling book on the subject entitled, Trust Agents.

If someone had to read just one post of yours which one would it be?
According to the rest of the internet universe, “Handcuffed Without Consent.”

The biggest issue facing accountants today is . . .
How to restructure the audit industry to become a profession based upon integrity (auditors no longer selected, managed and paid for by the companies they audit) versus what we have today—an environment too often based on greed. If we get the restructuring of the audit industry right, the crooks who ruin it for the rest of the public audit professionals will leave the industry for more lucrative pastimes elsewhere—you’ll most likely find them in the executive suites of their former clients.

Best Accounting firm we’ve never heard of . . .
The Johnsson Group, based in Chicago. Their specialty is improving the internal financial operations of some of the largest corporations in the world. They’re the been-there, done-that consultants every major corporation wishes they had in their back pocket long before the regulators started knocking . . .