Professor Elam

A Sherlock Holmes novel graces this post for out theme of Professional Skepticism. This is the mindset of the successful auditor, and investor.  And so the DMN Page 1D details how the SEC has frozen Amerifirst assets.    Click and read the article.  This appears to be another Ponzi Scheme.    Succintly a ponzi scheme uses the money from later investors to pay off the first investors. Once a few are paid, everyone is urge to  ‘let it ride’
rather than withdraw funds.  This is imperative for the success of the scheme as of course, there is usually no legitimate invesment of any kind involved.  What is amazing is how often this happens, there has certainly been one in the news every year I have taught since 1999.  This is why the current term fro auditing is ASSURANCE, the investors are assured that things are as they should be.

Elsewhere owners are turning to rental schemes.   We have detailed the real estate bubble collapse at length.  Now You can rent that nifty $895 K home for just $5,300 a month, such a deal.  Real estate woes have forced the carmakers back to zero percent financing schemes to move cars off the lot.  The thing to remember about debt and speculation is this, all debts must eventually be re paid even if by foreclosure and write off of the loss. Now real estate is avoiding that by not foreclosing or leasing instead of selling, how long can the hot potato be tossed around avoiding the inevitable? Again this is why we study accounting., to make sense of the financial landscape.