Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

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  • Professor Elam

    United Breaks Guitars

    Dave Carroll  finally had to pay the $1200 to fix his guitar, broken courtesy of United Airlines. All his complaints were ignored, what's a musician to do?  Hmm how about recording a song and put it on You Tube?

    Well click to see what 

    Don't get mad

    Get Even can mean…

    United apparently is now paying attention, Dave made the national news with his song, 

    The message here is that one can speak out and be heard given the new media. It allows everyone to speak out. 

  • Professor Elam

    California Ethics Woes

    Community College officials face serious charges for misuse of funds and channeling money for various bond elections. 

    It never ceases to amaze me.  Whenever I teach ethics three times now, there is no lack of current ethically challenged officials making the news. One never needs to save articles so that there is material to demonstrate the problem to students. 

    Of course the lawyers for the officials are denying anything was done incorrectly. But the DA brought the case, and this is after all California where it seems to take quite a bit to break the law when it comes to government spending. 

  • Professor Elam

    Prof Elam Presents to San Antonio Internal Auditors

    One of my goals as your Professor of Accouting is to reach out to the business community of San Antonio. I want that community to know we are here.  In that regard I will be making a presentation at the July monthly meeting of the San Antonio Chaper of the Institute of Internal Auditors.

    This will be Wed July 8, networking at 11:30 CPE session featuring fascinating presentation by yours truly at Noon.

    Students are welcome and urged to attend. This would be a good chance to network with area professionals.

    This hotel is at the NE corner if I 10 and NE 410 BUT to access the hotel it is necessary to be traveling west on the 410 access road headed to I 10. If you go north of I 10 there is no exit for the hotel and backtracking is most difficult.

    Further I have invited Arlena Sones, Presdient of SA IIA to speak to our intermed class.  Date to be announced.

  • Professor Elam

    Internal Audit Quote of the Week

    As Jeff Foxworthy says, you just can’t make this stuff up.

     

    In the article on the front page of the SA paper yesterday Sunday July 5 the vice chancellor of the Alamo CCD makes this comment

     

    James McLaughlin pitched cutting a position in the internal auditor’s office, saying his staff could not keep up with the drumbeat of reports each identifying some new problem to fix.

     

    “When you pick up a rock, there are 1,000 snakes and every snake has babies,” McLaughlin has said of district operations. “

     

    Prof Elam observation – The job of an internal audittor is to identify the highest risk an entity faces, propose solutiknos, and then hopefully the risk is reduced.  Clearly the reactino of the VC is forget that, stop the reports I do not want to hear bout itl.

     

    Perhaps that internal auditor should be transferred to James office to help out….

  • Professor Elam

    Total Quality Management

    Decades ago the modern grocery with wide aisles and shoppers pushing carts about did not exist. 

    The shopper faced the grocer who was behind a counter. The grocer requested an item and the grocer went to the shelf and retrieved it.  This gave way to the multitude of items in stores todays with shoppers making their own decisions. No doubt studies revealed people would buy more on impulse, and well we can stand the pilfering. 

    Today's point, in many cases the original method may have had it right. I had one of those
    'some assembly required projects' which nearly always requires a trip for more fasteners. 
    These days there are SAE and Metric as well as both coarse and machine threads. Open bin containers at the Big Box Hardware coupled with unsupervised children are a disastrous formula. As you may have noticed most children in stores have roughly the same supervision as wild hyenas descending on a hapless wounded zebra.  (Editor, Prof Elam please keep such editorial comments to yourself, they hardly add to the pedagogy..) (Elam, been to a store lately?)

    At any rate the helpful store clerk bemoaned that children and shoppers would of course mix the sized all up so it was impossible to tell what was what in which bin. And then when the shopper got home with the wrong a mis match, the clerks got blamed. 

    The better idea here would be the original. Put all the nuts bolts screws, nails behind a counter. Position two knowledge able store clerks behind the counter. The result would be satisfied shoppers and much much better inventory control as well as fewer mis matches.   

    The problem with TQM is that we can explain it to management but as you noted in your essays, they ignore the better idea and go cheap anyway. What good does it do to leave with the mis matched bolts?

  • Professor Elam

    The Hollows Replies

    A couple of posts back I described my difficulty in attempting to pay my apt rent. 

    Today, Sunday, they actually called me back, I had sent an e mail.  the young lady attempted to explain the bizzare reasoning behind shutting the mail drop, I was on the cell and it missed me. She also allowed that two days a week someone was in the office by 8"30, and they stay till 7 PM.

    Well that's a start…

  • Professor Elam

    California Dreamin’

    George Will describes Meg Whitman, ex E Bay CEO, and her run for the Republican nomination for Governor. 

    Now CA is paying vendors with IOUs, as always an interesting read from George.

  • Professor Elam

    Debt Road Trip

    Here is an interesting example of just how much money we are about to owe.  It is also an interesting example of how to present a complicated matter, very large numbers that dwarf understandiong.
    click for the National Debt Road Trip.

  • Professor Elam

    Will California buy Ebay’s Meg Whitman?lica

    Ntw California is paying its bills with IOUs. George Will reports that Ebay former CEO Meg Whitman is running as a Republican for Governor.

    Did you know California schools now apparently trial Mississippi?

  • Professor Elam

    Foreign Workers at SA Aircraft Facilities

    WFAA reports that experienced mechanics are being laid off in San Antonio. The resumes of their replacements seem questionable. Click the link and read this one, are there no rules?