In what might be the biggest rager of the weekend, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) are meeting today and tomorrow in London to get down to brass tacks on the whole global meltdown thing.
Also on the agenda for the IFAC: Coming up with a plan to get one set of global accounting standards, and also figure out how to convince the likes of Maxine Waters to BTFO of accounting rules and stick to cooking up dead-end legislation on banning of credit default swaps.
Let us know how it goes.
Accountants’ Group Calls for Single Set of International Rules [Bloomberg]
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Jack Welch is Not Buying the Whole Work-Life Balance Thing
Jack Welch, who is increasingly looking like Gollum these days, has been quoted saying that there is no such thing as “work-life” balance only “work-life choices”, according to a story in the Wall St. Journal.
The quotes were in context of women who choose between spending time with family and those that want to “reach the top” but you gents aren’t immune.
Accounting firms are constantly selling “work-life balance” as a priority but we’ll take Welch’s comments as gospel here since, nothing we’ve seen or heard makes us believe otherwise.
So next time you get the work-life rhetoric, you’ve got some published material for your back up your “I call bullshit” argument. You’re welcome.
Welch: ‘No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance’ [WSJ]
Codification Will Affect You Whether You Like It or Not
In case you’ve forgotten, the new FASB Accounting Standards Codification is all up in your shit since it is effective for all financial statements dated after 9/15/09. One source is already less than enthused about the whole thing:
[From] what I can see it requires you to go through your financials and any place you referenced something like FAS 142 you have to change it to reference one of the like 5,000 topics, subtopics, sections, paragraphs, and subparagraphs within the standard. I think Operating Leases (Lessee) will now be labeled as follows (I am serious): “840-20-a”
After we got the vomit out of our mouths, we realized that this new reference has an uncanny resemblance to IRC referencing but maybe that’s just us. This is especially disheartening for those partners who spent their entire careers committing SFASs, EITFs, and APBs to memory so that they could be the go-to technical accounting wonk. So if that’s you, consider your life’s work completely ruined.
And the PCAOB has kindly reminded you that you get NO SAY in this matter, so just accept it. On the bright side, new associates will be starting or have already so replacing all those references on workpapers should keep them busy chargeable in between making copies and calling/emailing India to check on the cash reconciliations.
This will probably give more than a few of you heartburn this season but some of you may remain clueless about it until the eleventh hour which will make for some excitement. Discuss your excitement/melancholy in the comments.
UPDATE: We had short chat with one Big 4 auditor who summed it up this way, “its fuckin retarded espcially if convergence is happening soon.” Very poignant. Convergence and soon are obviously subjective but the point is duly noted since any sort of global standards would no doubt torch the FASB’s codification.
Madoff CFO Used a Spork for Breakfast Today
A quick correction:
We mentioned yesterday how nice a lady Frank DiPascali’s sister was for putting her house up for bail. We’re sure she is very nice but the judge wasn’t convinced that DiPascali wouldn’t bolt so he didn’t let him out on bail regardless of the agreement prosecutors had with defense attorneys.