Weekend March 18, 2017

I slogged through the movie The Accountant yesterday. In the past accountants ave always been portrayed as nerdy, cost obsessed types, if the writers want to portray a dull person, they invariably assign an accounting label. Lawyers however  are are usually portrayed as human saviors come to earth.

First off, Ben Affleck is not as good an actor, for my money, as Matt Damon, or Matthew McConaughey. But given the one dimensional role of his character, this role suits Ben well.

We meet Christopher Wolf as  screaming out of control youngster who is autistic. Turns out, like Ray in Rain Man, he is great with numbers and detail. So of course he grows up to be

an accountant but one with some unsavory clients.Chris is great at figuring out ways to have money cross borders without detection. But since the writer could not think of a plot where the viewers could follow a real forensic accounting showdown, Chris becomes the Jason Statham of the accounting world.

Yep we are expert at hand to hand combat all the way up to and including the .50 caliber Barrett M107A1 sniper rifle.  Perhaps we should add a class in 'gunning for the client.'

It has been a while since I have seen John Lithgow in anything.  Ever versatile, he plays a heavy in this one.

But the scene where Chris begins to dissect the books of Lithgow's corporation  has him all alone in the glass enclosed board room. He disdains the help of Anna Kendrick who suspects something is awry.  And of course by writing dozens of numbers in spreadsheet form on the class, he quickly comes to the conclusion, as he puts it, I don't guess, that something is amiss.

The subliminal message seems to be that becoming an intuitive forensic accountant requires out of the ordinary bordering on psychiatric impaired skills.

We still await a clever forensic accounting story about a guy or gal we might like who accomplished her mission the hard way, she learned it.  UP to now about all we have are screen wimps or weirdos.

Wed March 8 2017

I heard a presentation a few years back suggesting that low interest rates coupled with more regulation and higher minimum wage would surely result

in more automation. We are there now. The government is regulating the lower level employee right out of the job equation.

There is an article in today's WSJ about this but I am unable to link so here is a similar article from 2015.

Automation is finding a home in both law and accounting offices. Robots retrieve or pick items from warehouse shelves.

The automated fast food joint is literally around the corner.

I stress the importance of becoming certified in an accounting discipline. Now it is more important than ever as the lower level jobs disappear.