Audit market “flirting with stagnation”, says PCAOB chair [Accountancy Age]
The audit market is "flirting with stagnation" because it is considered as an obligatory compliance function, best obtained at the lowest cost, the chairman of the US accounting watchdog has warned. Speaking at an ICAS memorial address, Jim Doty […], chairman of the PCAOB, suggested that audit is being viewed as "largely irrelevant to the investment process" because of a lack of information and difficulty in discerning the difference between one audit and another.
Even if the average citizen might have shrugged with resignation over the Senate’s abandonment of gun control legislation, surely she must be in awe of the power of the NRA to bend democratically-elected senators to its will. On a less-visible front, the FASB and IASB are doing their best imitation of U.S. Senators to appease even more powerful patrons than the NRA — very rich bankers.
It's always the accountant, isn't it? "The former accountant, Jose Carlos Hinojosa, 35, also told jurors that Francisco Colorado Cessa, one of the five men on trial for alleged money laundering, was in bed with the Zetas and used them to grow his business. Colorado Cessa, now a businessman with contracts with the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex, got his start on a loan from a founding member of the Zetas, who at the time were the Gulf Cartel's paramilitary wing, Hinojosa testified."
How a Potter Took Accounting Into the Industrial Age [Bloomberg]
Josiah Wedgwood is Luca Pacioli for the industrial age.
Wall Street Guys Always Make the Best Villains [Bloomberg]
Scott London falls into Jonathan Weil's "Cartoon Crooks" and I picture someone from Scooby Doo.
Senate Releases Tax Reform Option Paper on Families, Education and Opportunities [TaxProf]
This is the third option paper.