My student in San Antonio, Gerry Herrera, posted a comment asking how GAAP can justify carrying costs forward, ie turning a fixed cost into an asset. I agree.  Actually cash basis accounting prevents managers from pulling such stunts.  The wonder is also how Gillette could do this for years with something as simple as razors…

Okay I am interested in your feedback.  I am in the process of updating my stereo system. And so the whole digital thing dawned on me, much easier to load everything up digitlally on one player than hunt for Cds, etc.  In this process I am trying to decide on a player and music source. …

One of the concepts we will study in cost accounting is that of a sunk cost-if the commitment has been made and the cost cannot be recovered, it has to be ignored. This concept is sadly lacking in the current national debate, or lack thereof, about Iraq and North Korea.  Eliot Cohen takes a look…

The Oct 18 WSJ reports that in a role reversal, parts supplier Collins and Aikman cut off parts supplies to Ford, forcing Ford to shut down an assembly line.  Note to Ford, one cannot push on a string of wet spaghetti and get results.  C and A is already in Chapter 11, this is a…

Flags of our Fathers  debuted October 20 and the Chicago Sun Times review  is here.  Roger Ebert is recovering from medical treatment so another chap wrote it.  I mentioned in class that  Eastwood is famous for budgeted movies that come in on budget and on time. Here is a link to an interview with Clint…

Both Chevy Norwood and Pam Joyce say they are turned off by Sears approach to clothing, hmm, with two ladies commenting in the negative I decided to take a look.  A few posts back I  reported that Sears was going to try a store within a store concept for Lands End.  So I went to…

Julie Boatman asked if Dairy Queen is a low end business.  I am not sure what she means by that but…DQ is concentrated in small towns, I don’t think there is a small town in West Texas without one.  But I guess the formula is successful.  Click here to learn that no less than Warren…

I have written a good deal about the importance of design.  And more magazine covers and business schools are getting on board the design bandwagon.  And so an ad for JItterbug  caught my eye. The trend has been to overload cell phones with features.  A phone, a camera, an MP3, a Windows Mobile program, a…

I will be in Austin, TX the next three days at the Texas Society of CPA Educator Conference.  I will be making a presentation that was selected for the Innovative Curriculum Presentations at the Regional and National American Accounting Assocaition meetings last year.  It involves using cost volume profit techniques to determine break even and…

When asked how the world had changed in his lifetime, British Philosopher Bertrand Russell replied, "It certainly has, from Rule Britannia to just another country!"  Okay that’s not an exact quote but Russell did note that England had fallen from World Empire in the late 1800s to just another player on the stage after WW…