Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
Polaroid filed for bankruptcy, overwhelmed by the digital camera age. Now a firm has license to produce a product that allows a digital camera to produce an instant type photo.
The article does not feature a picture of the device so I am not quite sure what the methodology is. But,
retro is in.
Enron is perhaps the landmark ethics case of our time. Now the Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Skilling attorneys that he did not get a fair trial. My take, if John Fuld who took $300 M out of Lehman the year before its collapse along with the cheats at Bear Stearns and Merrill, FNM and FRE are not in jail, I say let Skillng go, who knows we could use some creative finance guys these days….
A British paper reports that Brits have a lower quality of life then counterparts in Western Europe, particularly Spain and France. An interesting study, take a look.
Steve Wynn was part of a panel on Fox news this past weekend along with the Governors of Michigan and Indiana and an ecomomist. The link I found to the interview happens to be to the Rush Limbaugh site, but the point is, read what Steve has to say. This is the Steve Wynn that built and sold casinos in Vegas so he could build Wynns there and in Macao. His is a billionaire who has never laid off an employee, yet. He states that if congress passes all the tax legislation they are considering layoffs will happen. He makes the point that tax policy is the strongest element of change but that the government is raising rather than lowering taxes.
Granholm of Michigan was flummoxed at his comments as she begged for ever more unemployment benefits for Michigan. I have written about the New Civil War between the South that is attracting manufacturers and places in the North like Michigan that continue to lose jobs and population.
The parallel to where we are now is the stagnation of the 1970s. After the market dropped 50% from 1972 to 74 the economy was over regulated and taxes were high high high. The result was an entire decade of stagnation, that is where we are now. We are now bouncing back from the low of last March, as we bounced from December 1974. Wynn's prescription for success is quite a bit different from what we are getting.
Just a reminder for all Accounting Students (Professors please inform all of your Classes)
Deadline to RSVP for the Careers Workshop is Tuesday October 13th, please tell a professor, myself, or email Amanda Talaat at Amanda@sacpasociety.com. The workshop is Friday October 16th from 6-8 pm, registration begins at 5:30 pm. The workshop will be held at the SA CPA Society offices at:
Alamo Towers West
901 NE Loop 410, Ste. 420
San Antonio, TX 78209
If you are also planning to attend the Texas A&M San Antonio Inaugural Meeting before the workshop from 4:30-5:30 pm please make sure to email me so I can make sure we have adequate space for the meeting. We will be meeting at the same location so as to save time and allow us to attend the Careers workshop.
Thanks again and have a good week.
Joshua Wagner
WE received this e mail about a staffer at Kingsville. I am posing it not to promote this particular certification but to make the point that certifications are all the rage. Which is what I have been saying in class and on this blog…The trend is to set up certifications like this in niche professions, like purchasing manager. Usually one has to be employed in that profession to even be able to sit for the exam. And so the so called certification becomes a way to exclude outsiders from the profession. For example, it is impossible to be a public school superintendent in Texas without, you guessed it, a superintendent certificate. This assures that the same group that has produced lackluster grads for the last twenty years putting Texas behind various Eastern European countries in math will stay in charge.
Please join me in congratulating XXXX on passing the Certified Texas Purchaser (CTP) test. She has successfully completed the training and testing requirements and will be fully certified once she completes the application. This is quite an accomplishment as XXXX is developing professional skills as a career purchasing agent. She has already set her next goal, Certified Texas Procurement Manager.
This article from the Canadian Post
reflects on the downfall of GM. It also gives a vivid description of how GM worked using mangerial accounting principles, when it did work. The article seems to stop before a logical end, like exactly what is wrong and what might be fixed now but oh well.
The stock market is up but GM is back to offering zero percent financing and buyers can return the car in 60 days if they do not like it. That does not sound like a strong formula to me, what to do if the market and attitudes decline again?
This article details a PWC survey suggesting regional banks will start dumping non performing commercial real estate loans. I have noted in class that there are plenty of For Lease signs around SA, someone said yesterday that the average home price in Detroit is now $6400.
AT any rate, that is fine to say as a bank you are going to sell your non performing loans but to who and for what price? I doubt there is anyone to extend credit to the buyers, so only those with cash need apply. And the banks will all be trying to unload, I would guess at the same time. So the result will be a down spiral of prices at which commercial real estate will sell. The deflatoin continues.
The Express News now supports an external audit of the Police Dept. Please read the article, it is not about money but procedure. I put this one up to get you thinking that auditing is not necessarily about adding up strings of numbers to see if they total checks. These days it is about procedure, benchmarking the best procedure to assure top results.
The article states that internal audits are too slow. My guess is that is not the problem with the internal audit, I suspect the internal audit lacks enough clout to effect real change. If the City spends a quarter of a million on an external audit, that will carry some weight, just guessing but that is my take.
Note that an accounting firm will be chosen to conduct a procedural audit of a large city police department. Accounting is a diverse and growing field.
Come to think of it, here is an example of what I mean. Someone got the staff over ruled and substituted another towing firm for a city contract. Now look at the results. It often takes an outright failure or an outside expensive source to overcome internal strife, in any organization.
I think you will find this an interesting article. Olympus Imaging has a Fellows progrm to encourage Leadership, rather like an intern program I think. The specific reason I put this up, note at the end of the program the intern makes a presentation. Again we faculty cannot over emphasize how important it is to hone your presentation skills, in the final round, that is how you will be judged.
Professor Elam 