Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

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  • Professor Elam

    William and Mary wins Socionomics Scholarship

    Tuesday Dec18, 2018

    Dear Dennis and Peter,

     

    Thank you to you and your students for participating in the 2018 Socionomics Foundation Scholarship! We thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your students’ innovative papers. It is wonderful to see students learn about the socionomic perspective, incorporate it into their thinking and apply it in their studies.

     

    Dennis — Your students’ papers were well-researched and professionally written. We were especially impressed with their command of the academic prose. They made great use of SI’s research materials.

     

    Peter —  Your students’ papers were engaging reads, and maintained a strong focus on mood / confidence throughout. Thoughtful incorporation of class materials as well.

     

    We were impressed by the caliber of submissions from each class. You and your students sure made it tough to select a winner! With that said, we are happy to announce Michael Fairbanks, from the College of William & Mary, as this year’s recipient of the Socionomics Foundation’s $1k scholarship.

     

    We’d plan to highlight several papers from each university in an upcoming article in The Socionomist. If you both could provide a quote on what it’s like teaching socionomics to your students, and how the students took to the assignment, we would really appreciate it.

     

    And Peter, if you could connect us with Michael, that’d be great. We’d like to interview him briefly with the aim of including a quote or two from him in our Socionomist article.

     

    Thank you again. We’re excited that you’re sharing socionomics with your students and hope that you’ll consider participating should our budget allow for another contest next year!

     

    All the best for the holidays and the start of the next semester.

     

    Warmly,

    Alyssa

     

  • Professor Elam

    Another Wells Fargo Screw Up

    Tuesday Dec 4, 2018

    As we say in the ethics class, the CEO sets the tone at the top.

    And WFC just cannot seem to shake the never ending run of bad news and mismanagement.

    Now WFC is blaming a computer glitch for paper work that resulted in hundreds of home foreclosures.

    Read the link as one fellow describes how he and his  son ended up living in a friend's basement for three months.

    Enough!  Someone at the FDIC or SEC should simply shut Wells Fargo down and distribute their branches to other banks. That might serve as a decent lesson. Warren Buffet is a big WFC investor, where is he in all this?

  • Professor Elam

    Meet Professor Farhat, 34,000 Followers and Growing

    Weekend Dec 1 2018

    Mark Goldman interviews Professor Farhat on his podcast.

    Professor Farhat has some 34,000 followers on his Youtube page. Screen Shot 2018-12-01 at 11.41.00 AM

  • Professor Elam

    Blue Santa SA CPA Society Event

    Weekend Dec 1 2018

    SA CPA Society partners with the SA Police Dept for their annual Blue Santa toy drive. Some  1,800 toys were donated.  The event capped the drive and was held at the

    Omni Colonade Hotel.

    Fred Timmons, Past President of TSCPA state wide with Renee Foshee. Renee has taught tax classes for us. Padgett Strateman has been acquired by RMS. She and Josh Wagner both left RMS. She is now teaching at Angelo State while maintaining her home here in SA.

    _1010043

     

    _1010044Susan Hough center right with two ladies that assist her in marketing PwC.  Susan is a long time friend of our campus and

    has visited on multiple occasions.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    _1010045

    Here is Blue Santa himself with Exec Director Aman _1010049da Talaat with SA CPA Society.

    I sat with Kim Ford, right, at the KFord table.  Kim has fashioned her firm to be a forensic valuation and wealth management company.

    She is a CPA and has certifications in valuation.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    _1010050

    TAMUSA student Daniel Crain sat with the MGR group. MGR is headed by Mark Goldman, former SA CPA Society President.  MGR is recruits high end accounting professionals for firms in Central Texas.

    _1010052Mark Goldman center with  the eyeglasses and Bryan Edwards to his left with the beard. Mark and Bryan have one of the best folodexes in town, they know everybody. Mark hosts the podcast Where Accountants Go. I was the second person he interviewed. Click on the link to see the cover of 49 tips for a Successful Accounting Career. I placed a copy on reserve in  the TAMUSA library.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The keynote speaker was Anne Krause, Executive Director of HemisFair Conservancy..  After 50 years of near ndglect, Hemisfair is breathing new life

    thanks to the efforts of Anne and her Group.  I invited her to speak at our campus.

    _1010059

     

    PS Yours Truly with Blue Santa _1010047

     

  • Professor Elam

    Hedge Fund Proposes New Board Members for Luby’s

    Thursday Nov 29, 2018

    Bandera Partners has proposed new Board members for Luby's.

    Screen Shot 2018-11-29 at 7.11.12 AM

     

    One can see the price of the stock  bounced to the upside on this news.  Bandera Partners note that Luby's hassold $88 M worth of real estate which is twice the current market capitalization of the company. Those assets are gone forever and the money has been used to pay down debt. And stores are closing. It is hard to see how revenues increase that way.

    But this may be a lost cause without a complete re think of the business model. One observer notes that the cafeteria concept is dead.

    A few decades back cafeterias were popular with the senior set but that group may not exist any more.

    If you can think of a way to re-work Luby's  I suspect the Board would like to hear from you.

  • Professor Elam

    Library Calculator Donation

    Nov 20 2018

    Marina asked my advice about  what calculator the library should buy for student loan. I replied just a four function.

    But I had an HP 10 B and an older HP 18 which offers all sorts of functions. I had the manual for a later model 18 and printed the manual for the 10 B. Both are in the library for your use on campus.

    PB200001

     

    Diedre at left and Marina pose with the calculators.

  • Professor Elam

    No Lack of New Material for ACCT Ethics 5308

    Monday Nov 19, 2018

    Carlos Ghosn CEO of Nissan

    was arrested and jailed today for under reporting total compensation.Apparently Carlos broke some other rules as well

    What a lousy way to end a career at age 64.

     

    Meanwhile SA oil and gas fraudster Brian Alfaro had his Ferari and other toys seized under an $8 M judgement.

  • Professor Elam

    LUby’s Misses Filing SEC Report

    Thursday Nov 15 2018

    Luby's  missed filing its annual 10 K financial report with the SEC.

     

    Luby's stock hit a high of $25 in the early 1990s and has been in decline since. The firm also owns Fudrucker's and Cheeseburgers in Paradise.  This is ironic given the  flood of newer chains like Smashburger, Five Guys and In and Out in San Antonio.

    Screen Shot 2018-11-15 at 12.34.21 PM

     

  • Professor Elam

    J P Morgan Visit Nov 14

    Tuesday Nov 13, 2018

    The JP Morgan Securities Information event for students is scheduled on Nov 14th (Wednesday) 5-7 pm at the STEM
    building room 242    . The room is a large classroom with a capacity of 95. This wasn’t my preferred option but the Vista Room or the President’s Casa and even the large classrooms at CAB were not available at that time. I don’t expect any faculty to attend (unless you want to). However, I need enough students to fill up the room. So far I have only two students sign up.
     
    To keep track of students signing up, I’ve created a doodle pool. Please forward/post the link so that the students can sign up: https://doodle.com/poll/5kanksez9b772ye3. I would really appreciate if you can send your class, especially students enrolled in the senior level (43XX) Accounting or Finance classes. Please encourage them to attend and if needed, give them some extra credit to ensure they attend. We really need to have a good student turn out.
     

     

  • Professor Elam

    Professor Farhat Lecture Series

    Tuesday Nov 13, 2018

    Thanks to a helpful tip from Mark Goldman, I am providing a link to

    Professor Farhat's accounting lectures.

     

    Here is the Edspira link

     

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edspira+accounting+videos

     

     

     

     

    This is a link to his main page which displays all his offerings. Notice he has about 33,000 followers!  And he covers all the bases, advanced, tax, intermediate, govt, cost even a section on cpa exam review.

    So in addition to the Edspira Kahn series this is another resource for your accounting review.

    Screen Shot 2018-11-13 at 9.31.21 AM