Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

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  • Professor Elam

    Dolly Parton Gives Back

    Monday Dec 7 2020

    In 1990, the high school dropout rate for Dolly Parton's hometown of Sevierville Tennessee was at 34% (Research shows that most kids make up their minds in fifth/sixth grade not to graduate). That year, all fifth and sixth graders from Sevierville were invited by Parton to attend an assembly at Dollywood. They were asked to pick a buddy, and if both students completed high school, Dolly Parton would personally hand them each a $500 check on their graduation day. As a result, the dropout rate for those classes fell to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day.
    Shortly after the success of The Buddy Program, Parton learned in dealing with teachers from the school district that problems in education often begin during first grade when kids are at different developmental levels. That year The Dollywood Foundation paid the salaries for additional teachers assistants in every first grade class for the next 2 years, under the agreement that if the program worked, the school system would effectively adopt and fund the program after the trial period.
    During the same period, Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995: The idea being that children from her rural hometown and low-income families often start school at a disadvantage and as a result, will be unfairly compared to their peers for the rest of their lives, effectively encouraging them not to pursue higher education. The objective of the Imagination library was that every child in Sevier County would receive one book, every month, mailed and addressed to the child, from the day they were born until the day they started kindergarten, 100% free of charge. What began as a hometown initiative now serves children in all 50 states, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, mailing thousands of free books to children around the world monthly.
    On March 1, 2018 Parton donated her 100 millionth book at the Library of Congress: a copy of "Coat of Many Colors" dedicated to her father, who never learned to read or write.
    Happy 74th Birthday Dolly Parton!

  • Professor Elam

    PCAOB Raisess the Stakes for China

    Friday Dec 4 2020

    1. The House of Representatives passed a bill that has now advanced to the White House related to Chinese companies whose securities trade in US markets (googleàVan Hollen Kennedy Bill). While the bill deals with a number of related issues, it directly addresses the difficulty the PCAOB has had in being allowed to conduct its inspections of CPA firms that perform audits of Chinese companies that sell securities in the US markets. The following link summarizes the PCAOB’s view of the China-related access challenges.

    https://pcaobus.org/oversight/international/china-related-access-challenges

  • Professor Elam

    Student Rating of Instructors

    Thursday Dec 3 2020

    The Student Rating of Instruction (SRI) emails were sent to students today to their Jaguar email accounts. An announcement was also posted to Blackboard. Students can also access their SRIs via a link in Blackboard after they login. The SRIs are open now and will close on 12/6/2020 11:59 PM at 11:59 pm.

    Students have two options to access their Course Evaluations (please feel free to copy and paste the information between the bars into a communication to your students):

    ________

    1.   Blackboard. https://tamusa.blackboard.com/webapps/login/ Once you login you will see the "My Institution" page. Look for the "Tools" module. The course evaluation link is at the bottom of the Tools module. Click on the link "Course Evaluations" and you will be taken to your course evaluation links for each class you are enrolled in.

    2.   Student Jaguar Email accounts. Student Jaguar Email link. Once you login to your Jaguar account, you will see emails sent by A&M-San Antonio Admin. You should have received one email for each class you are enrolled in. Links to the course evaluations are contained in these emails.

    ________

    We are conducting a communication campaign to encourage your students to complete their SRIs. However, research indicates that the simplest and most effective way to improve your SRI response rate is to communicate with your students about why their feedback is important to you as an instructor, and to remind them about the SRIs at least twice.

    Below is the announcement that was sent out to students. If you have any questions, please email Christina Cortinas at christina.cortinas@tamusa.edu. 
    ——

    Texas A&M University-San Antonio

    Student Rating of Instruction Survey

    Dear A&M-San Antonio Student,

    Texas A&M University-San Antonio values the opinions and feedback of our students. With this in mind, we would like to encourage you to provide constructive feedback on the quality of instruction in your classes through the "Student Rating of Instruction" survey system, which is now open for evaluations. 

    Click on the link below to respond to the brief survey. You will receive a separate email for each class you are enrolled in. You can also access your course evaluations via Blackboard after you login (look for the Course Evaluations link in the left-hand Tools menu on the My Institution landing page).

    Please note:

    –       Surveys must be completed by 12/6/2020 11:59 PM at 11:59 pm.

    –    You will only be allowed to complete one survey for each class.

    –       Evaluations are confidential, and faculty and administrators are unable to link student information with completed evaluations.

    –       If you have any difficulty completing your SRIs on or after 11/23/2020 6:00 AM at 6:00am but before 12/6/2020 11:59 PM at 11:59 pm, please contact the Institutional Research office at IR@tamusa.edu.

    Please complete your SRI by clicking on this link: [link removed]

    Note: This link is specific to you and your class – please do not share this link or forward this email to another person.  

    Thank you and best wishes to you for finals and the successful completion of your courses! 

    The Office of Academic Affairs

  • Professor Elam

    IMA Updates

    Wed November 25 2020

    #1.  Federal Reserve Speaker
    For those of you who were unable to catch the Federal Reserve speaker at our October meeting, the Kansas City, Mo chapter is hosting the same speaker Tuesday, December 1st at 5 PM.  
    The event is free and will qualify for 1 hour of CPE if you need it.

    Here is the link:

    IMA is excited to announce an upcoming promotion, running for one week only from November 23 to November 30. Under the banner of “Make a difference in your career,” the promotion will offer 50% off the CMA entrance fee and IMA membership. For anyone who has considered starting the CMA program, now is the perfect time to make a commitment to a higher earning potential, greater credibility, and new career opportunities. Watch your email for full details about this limited-time offer. (Offer not valid on CMA exam registrations or IMA membership renewals).
     
    As always, if you have questions, give me a shout!
     
    – Mike Lovelace, CMA
    VP of Engagement, San Antonio chapter

  • Professor Elam

    Emerson on Gifts – Spearking to Black Friday some 180 years ago

    Thursday November 19, 2020

     
    V. Gifts
     
       GIFTS of one who loved me,—
      ’T was high time they came;
      When he ceased to love me,
      Time they stopped for shame.

    IT 1 is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy; that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. If at any time it comes into my head that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house. Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond; everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery even though we are not deceived by it, because is shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a hundred miles to visit him and should set before me a basket of fine summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the labor and the reward. 2

    		   1
      For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option; since if the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I can think, of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. 3 Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is that we might convey to some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis, when a man’s biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man’s wealth is an index of his merit. 4 But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s. This is fit for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of blackmail.   2
      The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in living by it:—

       “Brother, if Jove to thee a present make,
      Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take.” 5

    We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society if it do not give us, besides earth and fire and water, opportunity, love, reverence and objects of veneration.

    		   3
      He is a good man who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence I think is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; 6 and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, then my goods pass to him, and his to me. 7 All his are mine, all mine his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil or this flagon of wine when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things, for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of the gift but looking back to the greater store it was taken from,—I rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with the anger of my lord Timons. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A golden text for these gentlemen is that which I so admire in the Buddhist, who never thanks, and who says, “Do not flatter your benefactors.”   4
      The reason of these discords I conceive to be that there is no commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish compared with the to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit which is directly received. But rectitude scatters favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the thanks of all people.   5
      I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to prescribe. Let him give kingdoms of flower-leaves indifferently. 8 There are persons from whom we always expect fairy-tokens; let us not cease to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,—no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you and delight in you all the time.

  • Professor Elam

    WMT – Shopping has Changed

    Wed Nov 18 2020

     

    WMT announced that shopping habits have permanently changed.

    WMT notes that people spend more shopping on line. WMT has seen this and acted appropriately.

    The company reported U.S. comp sales rose 6.4% during the third quarter, with most of this gain coming from e-commerce. Walmart said in its quarterly report that e-commerce — where revenues grew 79% in the third quarter — was responsible for 5.7% of this increase. Both online sales and orders placed online for in-store pickup are included in Walmart’s e-commerce bucket.

  • Professor Elam

    Kristi Alfaro Defaults

    Wed Nov 18 2020

    Kristi Alfaro, wife of a convicted San Antonio oil man, has defaulted on an agreed to repayment deal.

    No honor among theives as they say,.

  • Professor Elam

    SEC Moves for Audit Oversight on Chinese Companies

    Wed Nov 18 2020

    The SEC will apparently insist by year end on audit oversight of Chinese companies listed on American Exchanges.

    Chinese companies like to list here and have shares traded. But they have resisted attempts to be audited by American firms.

    Looks like the SEC is going to stop that practice this year, read the link above.

  • Professor Elam

    Internal Audit Practitioner

    Wed Nov 18 2020

    Learn about the Internal Audit Practitioner designation here.

     

    The exam  is one hundred m/c questions in a two hour time limit, that is  1.2 minutes per question, so it is not easy.

    However review material is inexpensive. One has two years to pass once approved.  I am exploring how many times one can re take the exam.

    I believe this is the first of the three exams toward Cert Internal Auditor.

  • Professor Elam

    Alfaro Still Scheming

    Friday Nov 13 2020

     

    Just this week we described the 121 month sentence  to Brian Alfaro. If at first you don't succeed, try again!

     

    Alfaro and his wife, while he waits the month before reporting to jail, attmepted to launch ARCA Wildlife.

    The State of Texas issued a cease and desist order

    as the wording of this scheme sounds just like the oil scheme, working interests, overages, etc.

    I never run out of new material for the ethics class.