Okay let’s have some fun, cruise to TLAPD.   It is coming Up Wed Sept 19 so ye had best arm yourself with some handy pirate phrases. You might be called to stand watch so best to bone up so to speak…on

spotting sailing ships.  In fact America has a long and colorful history with Pirates both real and imaginary. The Marine Hymn reference to the Shores of Tripoli recalls Jefferson sending US Marines to stop the imprisnoment and looting of Americans in the Med.  Andrew Jackson and Privateer Jean Lafitte defended New Orleans against the British in the BAttle of New Orleans in 1815.  Privateers have a rich history as naval mercenaries.  And as we observed in the previous post, piracy is rampant in China today.

So avast maties, align your compass rose with Wed, prepare to engage in Pirate Talk or else be taken prisoner like the land lubber ye must be!

Wednesday Sept 19 will be Talk Like a Pirate Day. That will be fun, but what is going on with the real modern day pirates is anything but.

I am of course referring to the wholesale Chinese Piracy of Just About Everything. An accompanying article, suggests that the Chinese Brand is damaged goods in the eye of the American consumer.

Back in the 1950s Japan had a reputation for poor quality goods.  Adopting the ideas of Dr. Deming erased all that, just ask GM or Ford.  Can China do the same thing now?  i don’t thinnk the Chinese quite understand the idea of property rights in a Communist environment, r ever will  After all, Intellectural Property and everything else belongs to the People, right?

Your take?

Bear Stearns Ethics are on display in this article.  We study the meanin of Materiality in Intermed I and again in Auditing. This article points out that the outside auditors mention that the pricing of securities in BS Hedge Funds was at best an estimate, the difference between that and reality could be material.

Turns out it was material, so much so that the entire $1.6 B High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Fund (can you say that without catching your breath) went  broke. Lawsuits are now flying. BS of course denies any guilt though investors say they promoted the scheme like a bank account.

I asked a few weeks back whether there was any difference in what Skilling Fastow Lay did at Enron and what BS did in this so called Hedge Fund, the results were the same, everyone lost everything.  Now Skilling is appealing his sentence and BS is denying their guilt, Can someone tell me the diference here?

Last week Mara Bartiromo interviewed CFC’s Marzilo. Turns out Marzilo cahsed out his options before CFC stock tanked. Readers have a few suggetions about what he might do with this new found wealth.

Look for the Democrats to try again to roll back CEO pay and bonuses if they win the White House and score more gains in the Senate in 2008.

It’s official, the top three employers in B/w’s annual career survey are big Accounting Firms, the fourth ranks number 11 in best places to work. So four of the top eleven spots are in accounting.

I suggest you log on immediately to  Best Places to Launch a Career.  There are additonal sidebar articles and videos to view. IF the Big Four are looking you can bet national, regional, and local firms are looking also. And as I have said in class, firms are looking to add to their managerial and internal audit staffs.  That is why I scheduled the Chief Internal Auditor for UNT to speak in Tuesday’s class.

It goes without saying that the top spots however will go to the top graduates, those that have shown the most promise in terms of their academic career, leadership potential, and knowledge of what is happening.  The latter is the reason for the blog. This  article is another reason to subscribe to B/W, they continue to deliver top results for a modest price.

This is the internship guide posted on the Tx State Website, yes there are rules.

http://www.txstate.edu/accounting/forms/internshipguide.pdf

Click to read internship experiences at various firms.

Grant Thornton

Padgett

PWC

KPMG

Ernst and Young

Deloitte

Johnson and Johnson

I will be adding more firms to this list.

Here is a series of articles about CFOs being charged and convicted of various crimes. Again with CFO ifyou will click on print at the upper right side of the page it is much easier to read the article.

We will be discussing ethics in all our classes this semester.  And the end result of a lack of ethics is usually law breaking.  Oddly even as Skilling appeals his conviction from a jail cell, there seems to be little brake on misdeeds.

Tenet Healthcare  has certainly had its share of troubles.  Financial analysis is all about separating the probable from the probably nots.  THC is based in Dallas and has had little more than bad news the last few years.  Read the artilcle and we will examine the balance sheet in class on Monday in Intermed I and Managerial.  Hint, if you click on Print at the top right the articles come up in much larger print and are easier to read on CFO.

Meanwhie Cognex dumped Ernst and Young replacing them with Grant Thornton.  The reason give was that GT handled more firms the size of Cognex. And apparently GT bought the business so to speak with its audit price.  One becomes an expert consultant by amassing a number of firms in one industry.  Sounds like good Audit strategy by GT to me. Not surprisingly there is an article on mid sized firms on GT’s web page.

IHOP purchased much larger Applebes.  Read the article to see how IHOP is changing strategy. IHOP used to finance their franchisee’s in their buidlings. Now they simply take a fee and let the franchise do their own financing.  Capital expenditures dropped about $130 M and revenue dropped from $80M to $60M. As the CFO says, that’s a deal he will take any day.  Such a reduction would have the greatest impact on what statement, why Cash Flow of course.  They plan a simialr changeover for Applebees. They saw this working as IHOP is mainly breakfast lunch and Applebees is more lunch supper.

In an effort to unload inventory, Hovnanian Builders announced a $100K price reduction in many of its homes. I can’t tell you how many as its server is overrun with inquiries!  The CEO was interviewed on Neal Cavuto’s show Friday afternoon saying that even with three times as many servers their internet site was overwhelmed. But today the stock rallied on the news, check out the chart using the symbol HOV.

Hmmm, prices falling, would that be deflation?

When Price and Supply don’t match something has to give, will this lead to more sales or perhaps auctions to clear out home inventories?

What does this say about best practices and inventory control that we study in managerial accounting?  The lack of inventory control can result is severe adjustments….