Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

recent posts

about

  • Professor Elam

    Accounting Careers

    Global Systems Audit Manager

    Our client is a Fortune 100 company and they are seeking an IT Audit Manager. They are requiring 10+ years of experience in IT with direct hands on experience managing application development within an IT organization. 
    – Strong SAP experience 
    – At least one audit certification: CISA, CISSP, CCSA, CIA, CPE 

    I spotted this ad via one of the e mail notices I get. I would draw your attention to it for several reasons.

    • Auditing is in a transition stage. We have moved in my lifetime from a pencil and paper system to a computerized paperless system.  The problem is that audit systems lag that change. The perspective of most audit textbooks and courses is still grounded in the pen and pencil era. no wonder, the bicycle was invented when people rode horses. Hence the position of a person on a bicycle mimics the position on a horse. Modern recumbent designs are more efficient but we still cling to the original design based on another mode. 
    • Note the world global, IBM has had more business overseas than in the US since the 70s yet we have yet to adopt intl accounting standards.  
    • I posted yet another fraud at Baylor hospital on this blog last weekend, the thief worked in IT, he was not an accountant, hello! 
    • Only one chapter of the audit text is devoted to auditing computer systems, no wonder the guy managed to steal the money, we of course never hear of the successful thieves that slip away or hte companies too embarassed to admit it.  
    •   Take another look at the certifications desired, do you notice anything? Yep CPA is not one of htem!  The first three all have to do with computer systems not accounting systems, but wait, is there a difference?j
    •  Gee Bob Dylan got it right, the times they are a changin
    • See my post for July 25 about the theft at Baylor Hospital 

  • Professor Elam

    The Next Five Years

    Here si a good article on where we are going. 

  • Professor Elam

    Minimum Wage, Minimum Opportunity

    John Stossel cuts thru the clutter with this article on the minimum wage. AS he says the idea of an all knowing govt saying by fiat that everyone must make so much money is nonsense, Instead jobs are simply not created.

    the entire country of France tried this on a national scale. the thinking was, are you ready, employers will have to hire more people if they are forbidden to work more than what was it, 37 hours a week?

    the predictable result of course was near double digit unemployment in Western Europe and that was before the meltdown.

    Nos the govt is subsidizing new home sales, to the detriment of older home sales.

    And there are bi weekly promsises of lower mortgage rates. The result is that buyers decided to wait for better deals, instead of moving on the deal they are offered. This is always the result of govt interference in the markets.

    Only goverments can create a shortage, markets left to their own devices solve shortages.

  • Professor Elam

    Kindle Prices Coming Down

    Picture 1

    Kidnle Prices are coming down, not enough to appeal to students yet.  I have thought Amazon would ned to bundle this with some books, but the textbook companies tell me that AMazon will not come off its price. While the product down loads books from the net, it seems to me it would need to be able to access the internet to have real appeal. After all most of the fancier cell phones do that now. 

    I finally held one of these and it is a nice design and replicates the look of a book. but this concept has still not taken on iPod like status. 

  • Professor Elam

    Hoboken New Jersey

    The docks of Hoboken New Jersey were the scene of the Academy Award winning On the Waterfront in 1955. Gee nothing has changed.  I commented on this last semester  to my Wiley rep who is in Hoboken. She said it had changed, apparently not. 

    FBI arrested local officials and yes rabbis in a scheme involving money laundering through Israeli charities. 

    Frankly the story is a bit hard to follow, but no indictments yet just arrests so it may take a bit for the story to come out. 

    Fraud, despite SARBOX et al, still with us. No wonder HBO put The Sopranos in Jersey….

  • Professor Elam

    The New Normal

    I was going to link but oddly the Dallas paper cannot find its own article under the search for 

    Home Funerals, but of course can display ads for patio furniture, oh well, 

    Families are now using simply constructed wooden caskets at low cost to bury their relatives. 
    Seems the $6,000 funeral is coming under serious scrutiny. 

    My Dad has the opinion that all caskets should be rented. Once everyone leaves the cemetery, the body drops into the grave and the casket goes back to the funeral home to be rented again, looks like Dad was ahead of his time. My wife reports reading of caskets made of banana leaves, the idea being that we recycle everything. 

    Meanwhile SW Airline stock is in the doldrums, no wonder. An article relates that Cisco
    is embracing its own video conferencing systems. I posted an article some months back that
    Alexander Grant was using video conferencing, to the delight of its employees. Now the gosh awful trip to the airport can be avoided. Capitalism is amazing, what hath the shoe bomber wrought?  I did not like going to the airport before the shoe bomber, I certainly do not like it now. 

    Has anyone used Skype?  wow, use the web cam on your lap top to go there, much better. I will be investigating gotomeeting.com for our school.

    bottom line, expect a decrease in travel as video conferencing becomes the literal extension of
    reach out and touch someone. 

  • Professor Elam

    Mother and Son Steal; $1.4 M from Baylor Hospital

    Here we go again! 

    Gary Stephens worked in the IT dept at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. This is a huge medical complex.

    No doubt the budget runs to the hundreds of millions each year. Click for the story, it is a good one.

    Gary created a fake company, submitted fake invoices, got the checks printed, picked them up and had his 59 yr old mother deposit them. So far so good. Take a relatively small amount over time, less than material in each billing, and perhaps you will not be noticed. 

    So how did he get caught?  You gotta love it. Seems a Dallas County Commissioner  bought a Bentley Continental GT trading in his Aston Martin (hey this is Dallas). Seems there were problems with the title, and Gary had traded or sold the Bentley to the dealership. Whoops, someone got to checking and gee what is an IT employee at Baylor doing with a Bentley.  

    A classic problem in any movie dealing with theft, is that some foolish crook wants to spend the money now. This of course is always a mistake and leads to suspicions. Had Gary and Mom quietly left for another country, preferably one without an extradition agreement, this might have worked. Although these days that is not enough money to live forever somewhere else…..

    But would your audit program or internal controls have detected that invoice among the thousands that Baylor receives?  Clearly Internal Controls were at fault as one person was able to submit, get approval, and a signature on the check, and picked up the check, all violations of a proper IC procedure. 

    The point is that inside crime is always perpetrated by someone who knows the system.  The fact that all the work is on the computer will make discovering such stunts more difficult in the future. 

  • Professor Elam

    Twilight Moves Mainstream

    The first pop mania I remember was the Disney induced Davy Crockett craze of the mid to late 1950s. No dobut Disney regretted the fact that Crockett died at the Alamo, who knows how long it might have lasted otherwise? But my point is that Davy Crockett faux coonskin caps et al were the craze at the time.

    We have mentioned the public fascination with the dark side of the force, ie, vampires. And so
    I was greeted this morn by Amazon hawking Twilight tote bags, key chains et al. Yesterday a student was sporting a Wicked T Shirt.See our May 10 post about Wicked. 

    Classes have scoffed at our continual presentation with this fascination with the dark side of the force. Really, pop culture reflects reality. As an elementary school kid I had a Roy Rogers lunch box Indeed Roy and wife Dale were the American symbols of upright virtue, even in real life.  Roy and Dale led the current trend by adopting Korean orphans after that conflict.  Today young ladies carry Twilight tote bags. This is not about adopting Korean orphans… see the difference?

  • Professor Elam

    Tales from the Dark Side, Now Mainstream

    Parade magazine is that familiar Sunday newspaper insert. Most of the articles are rather bland family fare The latest edition asks about the Child Care Crisis. In reality this is a crisis brought on by higher government taxes forcing more people into the work force as well as the idea that 'one person can live as cheaply as two' which is to say divorced. But that is not the topic today.

    Rather I was taken aback but not surprised as the questions and responses in the Sunday July 19, 2009 edition.   In Personality Parade, usually a series of who is doing what in Hollywood we get these exchanges. See what this tells you about the mood of popular culture

    • Does CBS realize canceling its  vampire series Moonlight was a mistake?  The answer of course is yes.
    • Why would Mischa Barton choose to appear as a deranged stalker in her latest film? (The socionomic answer is because that reflects the public mood and will be popular but read her answer).  I am attracted to characters who are a departure from my own experience. My character goes to extremes which is why she was so much fun to play. Emphasis added 
    • Is it true that Megan Fox is playing a dead person in a horror movie? Half true, In the horror comedy (there is a genre for you) Fox starts out as a cheerleader suffering from demonic possession: a slight problem for some of her schoolmates. (only slight?)  I spent half the movie being dead Fox said.  Professor Elam comment The movie Jennifer's Body will be out this fall, perhaps just in time to catch Wave Three down in the markets.  

    The point I am making is that fascination with the dark side has now moved fully mainstream. Up and coming personalities are playing darker and darker characters. This is not Julie Andrews in Sound of Music as the Dow hit 1,000 in 1965. This is the Exorcist s the Dow plummeted from 1,000 in 1973. Watch out below.   

  • Professor Elam

    Six Reasons to Abolish the FED

    Do you read Mish's Economic Analysis?

    Ron Paul has sponsored a bill to audit the FED, will he get enough votes?