Wesley Snipes is usually seen in movies hunting the bad guys. Well the hunter has become the hunted, by the IRS no less.   It seems Wesley hired a group associated with filing fraudlent returns.  The scam is to file a return claiming losses to obtain refunds of previously paid taxes.  The IRS does not take…

To better help your understanding of intermed and cost, I will be arriving at 8:45 before class.  This past Wed several of us found ourselves chatting on the comfortable couch and chairs outside 243.  We enjoyed the visit so much I decided to make it more permanent.  These were posted office hours anyway but there…

The only gift is a portion of thyself.  The poet brings his poem, the painter his picture. Well put way back in 1844 by RWE.   Yes that gosh awful season of greed and imposed necessity is upon us.  It is a national retail frenzy and oft forgotten religious holiday.  RWE’s essay on Gifts is perhaps…

Several of you have asked about a book to review.  The idea behind the book review has multiple goals-college should require one to read and acquire knowledge outside the classroomyou should develop a stable of authors you admireyou should discover new ways of looking at the same old landscape. For example, who is your favorite…

This morning the e mailbag contained a good question.  A cost student questions why we have  a third costing system in ABC when we studied variable and absorption in the previous chapter.  Here’s the answer. ABC is NOT an alternative to absorption or variable.  Those two methods address whether we expense all fixed costs (variable)…

An old saying has it that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.  This is particularly true of returns that are much higher than normal. If T Note are returning say 4.75% as they are now, one should be wary of an investment trust returning say 13%. That has been the…

Decades ago when I was sitting where you are, the profs would put articles from academic and workplace journals on reserve in the library for us to read.  Frankly I never got it, they were boring and dreary seemingly never making a point.  I am seeking to do just the opposite with you by pointing…

"Things have gone global almost overnight." Bill Ford,  WSJ Page B1 10/27/06 on the occasion of visiting China to expand Ford production into Asia. Gee Bill, no wonder you aren’t running the company any more.  I have suggested that some of you review Investment Biker and Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers.  Touted as the Indiana…

The Sunday DMN Business Section details that  Plano Investor Craig Hall has taken  a position of 8.23 M shares in RSH.  I checked and sure enough from its 2000 high of $75 it has fallen to $15, up to $20 and now back to $17.67.  The stock tumbled that $2.50 or so on an unexpected…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced a Victorian world to the the new ‘science of deductive reasoning then popularized at Scotland Yard. His character was the ever so famous to this day Sherlock Holmes, chemist and crime solver.  Holmes took particular pride in letting the Yard take credit for cases he had solved.  The character has…