Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
Tuesday January 22 2013
Megan Lavelle is benefitting from a STratasys 3 D printer. Exo skeletons have been developed for older six year old kids but Megan was just two. Teh solution was to scale down the design using ligher weight
plastic.
Now for the first time megan can feed herself and hug her Mom like any nromal two year old.
Amazing.
Tuesday january 22 2013
Dodd Frank was supposed to cut down on the kind of excess specuation that led to the 2008 meltdown.
But A Tale of Two Insurers tells the story of two insurance companeis that had to sell their banks. Otherwise they would be subject to two totally different sets of regulations.
Accountants are in demand because they help CEOs cope with regulations. I have recommended that all of you subscribe to the WSj, Here is a perfectly good example of what you should be reading outside class. I frankly can't tell if this link will work for a non subscriber as I do subscribe and it works for me.
ONe company is Shelter Insurance in Mo, the other is giant Met Life in NY. But both reached the same conclusions. it will not be enough for students to merely understand accounting. One must also grasp the context and reality in which regulations are playing out.
Tuesday Jan 22 2013
Dorothy Rabinowitz takes a look at Lance Armstrong. Ms. Rabinowitz is a long time member of the WSJ Editorail Board.
WE will be discussing Lance's attempt at redemption in the Ethics class this next saturday.
Monday January 21 2013
Golfer Phil Mickelson is re evaluating his lifestyle in golf facing an overall 62% tax rate. I am sure that Phil has employed a fine group of CPAs to advise on his tax status. Politicians believe that there is no limit to the taxes that can be imposed, that behavior will not be affected.
The taxes in France are too high but why one would go to Russia is beyond me.
This chart shows taxes as a percent of GDP. Take a look at how that spiked in 1945 at the end of WW II.
Now Warren Buffet dismisses the 16 trillion in debt saying that it is no more than at the end of WW II. But that was the highest ever! And it was a result of fighting a World War in Europe and the Pacific. Americans were working then we did not have 47 millino on food stamps Warren. And the US was a net creditor to the world. Now we are a net Debtor. The world not the US will determine the eventual US Debt Ceiling. Our unfunded off balance sheet liabilities disguise the true amount of debt meaning that the statistic Buffet refers to is simply not accurate. For example, in last week's WSJ Susan Combs the Texas Comptroller noted that the City of Houston has an unfunded pension liability of $2.4 billion. Other major cities have the sameproblem. That number is not on the books, Warren, and you know it.
CHuck Schumer plans more taxes, and more debt. Note his use of rhetoric, paying the bills he calls it. Take a look at now Congress has been spending below, is this paying the bills or a Senate out of control with no budget? AT far right note the rate of change from one year to the next is increasing. This is a parabolic increase. A parabolic increase is geometric as in x squared as opposed to x times two. All parabolic increases end in collapse. Clinton was fortunate to have an expanding economy and a Republican Senate and House, hence gridlock kept spending from increasing so quickly. The growth of the markets and economcy provided money to pay the bills so to speak.
If all this money were being spent on infrastructure rather than entitlements, the new word for welfare, it might be different. Where is the 200 mph train from
Downtonw Houston to Downtown Dallas to Downtown Austin to the North Loop in San Antonio, which is our real downtown.
Instead the money goes for food stamps, social security, etc. Would this money be better spent at the local level rather than funneled through endless bureaucracy in Washington DC? I mean hey, this is your future!
Monday January 21 2013
A student asks about the timing of the Speakers coming to campus. Would some be available on Saturday for students that work?
I began teaching at TAMUSA in 2003. Enrollment has slowly grown since then by about 350 overall students a year, in total for all three schools, Education, A and S , and Business. The day time enrollment has been the slowest to grow. In the last year we have had classes with as many as 30 in the day time.
When I taught at Texas State aka Southwest Texas in San Marcos, the Accounting Club did and still does meet every Thursday at 5 Pm. Now understand that Texas State has over 700 under and graduate accounting students. We have about 190 undergraduates. Even at that we would have about 40-50 of less than one tenth of the total number of accounting students at club meetings where a speaker would be featured.
At Texas State the students who were interested would arrange work schedules around the Thursday meeting. But admittedly many of them were younger and worked jobs like retail or restaurants which offered various hours of work. What has happened in my estimation here is that we have one group of students working full time who go mostly from 5 30 on into the evening. Another group is mostly comprised of women with families who go in the day time when their children are in school.
Now understand that at 5 30 every classroom in the building is full, so there is no where to have any one speak. In the past I have had speakers come to class but of course that eliminates one class period to discuss what we need to cover.
My take was that we finally had enough day time students to support a day time presentation. Speakers work as our students do. It is not possible to get volunteer speakers to come on a Saturday. And remember we now have Saturday classes for graduate students both morning and afternoon every Saturday. So the late afternoon is out as is Saturday.
We scheudled day classes and there was a request for a 2 PM class which we scheduled TR. But it has only six enrolled. I believe I can schedule speakers at noon, and this next Thursday at noon will be our first attempt. However we need to have I think at least 20 in attendance for the Speaker to feel that they have accomplished a worthwhile objective.
Now, that said, one of my plans is to interview more and more business people in San Antonio on Video and put that on Yout Tube. In that way students who cannot attend can at least share the thoughts and presence of outside speakers. I will be presenting this idea at our annual SWTLC conference in April.
I have initially interviewed Fred Timmons incoming President of TSCPA. Bruce Howard as agreed to a video interview as well. No the interviews are not up yet, I am working with Sherita to make sure we have everything right first.
So the future of this project depends on getting students out in force for our first speakers. Later in the week seems to work better for most Speakers that is why I chose thursday.
And that is where this project is now.
Sunday Jan 20 2013
It's always easy to spot the A Student. The A student arrives prepared and anticipating what will happeni in class. The assignments have been read adn outlined, Problems are attempted. The A Student goes outside the required work and researches topics on their own. For example, I just added a list of helpful websites to the Course Content under Blackboard. I have links to several commodity and stock exchanges on the site. As the intermediate classes know, we will be studying Futures and Options using a download from the CME site. How many of you will take the time to explore the CME and ICE sites. What contracts are traded? What does the creation of a new contract tell us? The answer is that there is now enough demand to trade sometbhing not previously traded. I noticed one exchange is introducing a rupee futures contract. This is indicative of expanding business in India.
B Students read assignments but generally do not go beyond that.
C Students show up, sometimes, and rarely read the assignments. Since there is little to no preparation for class they cannot follow the lectures and have not clue as to whether they understand the problems or not.
Plan on which student you want to become now.
Sat Jan 19 2013
Doug Casey suggest the US Default.
Waht do you think? In my weekly column not posted here yet, I suggested that the danger to the children the President had on stage was not being shot but certainly being stuck with a debt that cannot be paid off.
Sat January 19 2013
We will shortly study time value of money and cash flow statements. That is the subject of this article,
What's Dell Worth? The article demonstrates a grasp of both financials statements, revenue, and time value. A great example of what we are doing in class.
Sat January 19 2013
CAT experienced a writedown of goodwill regarding an investment in a Chinese Company.
Specifically this is a non cash goodwill writedown. As an accounting student do you know what that is? This is why we study accounting. Notice that CAT Board members admitted this should have received more scrutiny, but when it did CAT did not heistate to take action. This is an example of good corporate governance. If you do not know what a non cash good will writedown means, look it up now, don't wait for me to explain it in class.
Get out front ahead of the rest of the class, that is the point of this blog, to relate what we study in class to the real world.
Sat Jan 19 2013
H-E-B will be interviewing for 125+ internships. The information provided below was sent directly from one of our H-E-B Recruiters. Please review share with your students. I am available to answer any questions.
H-E-B in 2013
- 125+ Summer internship opportunities in the following industries/buckets.
o Corporate (All areas)
o Store Leadership (Operations)
o Manufacturing, Warehouse & Transportation (Leadership Opportunities and Engineering)
o Pharmacy
How to Apply: visit us at heb.com/careers and search by keyword, “internship”. All positions will be in their respective industry/buckets.
When can I apply: Internships will post on our website on February 1st, 2013 – February 22nd, 2013.
Internship details:
- Length: 10 weeks
- Compensation: Yes, they are paid internships with full 40 hour weeks.
- Interview process: Typically 2 – 3 interviews which include 1 or 2 phone interviews and a face to face with hiring team.
Professor Elam 