Wed Feb 2 2022
One social security number netted this fraudster $222,000 from 50 states.
Hmm could internal control for Unemployment benefits be tightened up a bit?
Professor Elam
Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
about
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Professor Elam
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Professor Elam
Jan 31 2022
Another month, another KPMG investigation.
Take a read on an unusual case where the junior level auditors did not act appropriately. '
How is it that KPMG shows up so often in such investigations? Recently we have had
the national audit CEO sent to jail for PCAOB violations
Fines for over 1,000 KPMG Australia employees cheating on required exams
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Professor Elam
Tuesday Jan 25 2022
Irene Scott stole $1.7 M from the law firm employing her.
She had the nerve to seek unemployment payments after being fired for her theft
She is now looking at seven years to do in Federal Prison
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Professor Elam
Tuesday Jan 25 2022
ADKF's aduti of the San Antonnio Symphony is here.
This is a small organization and that makes this easier to understand.
But all the rules of form, reports and disclosures are followed.
And there is a couple of notes warning of a Going Concern Failure.
This makes the report an ideal teaching tool. Take a look at the link above.
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Professor Elam
Tuesday Jan 25 2022
Tuesday Jan 25, 2022
At the first of November a short three months back, new highs dominated the New Highs New Lows section of the WSJ.
Today it takes nine columns 2/3 the length of page B 9 plus another page to list the new lows.
Social mood towards owning stocks has moved from positive to negative.
Stock prices fall seven times faster than they rise, we are witnessing just that now.
The 20% collapse in NFLX Friday was that shot across the bow warning of what would happen Monday, remember Oct 1987, same thing but not as severe but a mood collapse still.
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Professor Elam
Weekend Jan 23 2022
I wrote about my use of Emerson essays in my audit and ethics classes. I thought the President would find the application of Emerson to current business teaching and practices.
Here at Tamusa we are encouraged to have students 'write across the curriculum' as well as present in class. You can see I am attempting both.
This is a opportunity to set yourself apart from students at other business schools.
We will visit in class about this.
interesting and out of the ordinary. Here is what I sent Professor Prentiss.
Dr. PrentissBy way of introduction I am an Associate Professor in Accounting at Texas A & M University San Antonio.In Texas one must take a State Board approved accounting ethics class to sit for the CPA Exam.I created and have taught the ethics class since inception. My experience is that business student don't readily relate toAristotle, Hobbs, andLocke. However once I turned to RWE, they were amazed that 1841 essays were so relevant today.Well students times change people do not.I have extended the assignment to my two audit classses. They must post their thoyghts on the Blackbard Discussion Board. Here are a couple of responses.I can’t help wondering why we are reading an essay about self-reliance in an Auditing class. However, as I kept reading and understanding what it is about, I started to appreciate it. The title itself “Self-Reliance” made sense to me. The essay is everything about us, the person within us. The power, mind, strength, and voice within us. It gives us inspiration and motivation. It has nothing to do with what class we are in, what major we are pursuing, how old, or what is our status in life. The essay is about listening and believing in us and giving ourselves due respect. By doing so, success is inevitable.
One statement really caught my attention, the part where it says “The voice in your own mind is so familiar to you that you give it no respect. Instead, you give too much weight to the thought of others — your neighbors, your teachers, or some great thinker from the past”. This is so true; we became so afraid of what other people or our friends think about us. We are so busy pleasing other people that we lose our true selves in the process.
In addition, the current environment and situation we have where people are forced to be “politically correct”, is also not helping us to grow. People are now more worried to get “canceled” than to say their truth. Where is the growth in that?
________________________this from a student from the country of JordanThis is my first time reading for Ralph Waldo Emerson, And I really enjoyed it, and makes me think about myself, my actions, and things I've been doing lately.
The most amazing thing that this Essay was written long time ago, and still applied to this time.
The Idea that I learned from Emerson's Essay "Self-Reliance" is be yourself, and be honest with yourself, and work on youeself, if you want to change something start with yourself, don't be what other people wants you to be, or doing what other people expecting you to do, do what you belive in, belive in yourself, if you don't make yourself happy nobody can makes you happy.I really Enjoyed it, and I think I will read a lot more for Emerson in the future.
________________________thought you would enjoy discovering that yes RWE has plenty of application in the study of accounting ethics!Are you interested in papers from my students on how RWE has helped mold their ethical sensibilityDennis Elam PhD CPAAssociate Professor COB AccountingTexas A & M University San Antoniodennis.elam@tamusa.edudennis.elam@att.net________________________________Here is her encouraging responseDear Dennis,
Thank you for your note, and for sharing some of your students’ responses to Emerson. I’m delighted that they find him relevant, and that his writing prompted them think more deeply about their ethical sensibilities.
The Emerson Society Transparent Eyeball Blog accepts submissions on a rolling basis. Here is a description of what we’re looking for:
We welcome short—500-1,000 word—submissions from undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, independent scholars, early career as well as established scholars, artists, activists, and the general public. We especially encourage submissions that address Emerson’s relevance in our 21st-century moment; consider him in conversation with philosophers, poets, environmentalists, artists, and activists, within and beyond the nineteenth century; and explore him in transnational and interdisciplinary contexts.
Submissions may take any form—meditations, provocations, polemics, analyses, critical-creative hybrids, personal reflections—but should be original work, jargon-free, and accessible to the general public. Submissions will be received on a rolling basis and reviewed by members of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society Media Committee. Submissions may be returned to applicants with suggested revisions. Please submit your Transparent Eyeball contributions to TheTransparentEyeballBlog@gmail.com
Your students are welcome to submit something if they’re interested in writing a somewhat longer response (maybe a reflection on how Emerson helps them to think about ethics?). We’d also welcome something from you – or a collaboration between you and a few students — if you’re interested in writing something about Emerson in the Accounting Ethics classroom. My colleagues on the media committee would gladly review anything you’d like to send our way.
Thanks for reaching out, and please feel free to email if you have additional questions. You can also tell your students that they can follow the Emerson Society on twitter @EmersonSociety.
All best,
Prentiss
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Prentiss Clark
Associate Professor
Department of English
University of South Dakota
Prentiss.Clark@usd.edu
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Professor Elam
Weekend January 23 2022
SA CPA Terry Cleveland and Attorney James Hale are being sued over their faied New Opportunities Real Estate Investment.
The project involved extending loans to owners of property.. The owner was supposed to pay the difference in his actual note and the new interest rate to New Opportunities.
Frankly I have read the story twice and still do not understand the business purpose.
Apparently no liens were filed on the properties to establish collateral.
An SA Attorney and a Federal Bankrutpcy Trustee have both filed suits. Claims that this is A Ponzi Scheme are also being made..
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Professor Elam
Friday Jan 210 2022
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Professor Elam
Friday Jan 21 2022
We have simultaneous bubbles across all major asset classes. He estimates wealth losses could total $35 Trillion should valuations return to two-thirds of the way to historical norms.
Jeremy Grantham co-founder of GMO investments
What does Mr. Grantham mean by two thirds of the way to norms? One of Bob Farrell’s ten market rules is that all averages eventually revert to the mean or average. The last time the Dow Industrials touched their 200 month moving average MA was during the sub-prime melt down in 2009. That level was below 10,000. From its present level of 34,715 a two-thirds loss would put it at 11,455. The current 200 month MA is 17,469 about half the DJIA level now.
But the eye-popping returns have bee in the NASD. In the 2000-2002 melt down it fell from 5,000 to about 1,500, a loss of 70% or about Grantham’s 2/3. Today the NASD trades at 14,1544. Its 200 month MA is at 5,020. A tenet of social mood is that past events are unremembered and that fits the scenario now. In 2009 the NASD fell below 2,000. The NASD is already down 10% just this month from its high. Only 15% of the NASD stocks now trade over their 50 day MA . Now that the selling has started in the FANG stocks, this the bottom is literally dropping out. The NYFANG index has dropped from 8,000 in November to 6,836 yesterday.
For those that scoff at such bear markets consider what happened just yesterday after the market closed. Covid darling Peloton dropped 24% after announcing it was pausing production of its bikes.. Netflix fell 19% after reporting 8.3 million new subscribers. In a bear market, all news is bearish.
We have repeatedly warned in this space that the internals, breadth or overall participation, was much weaker than the new highs would indicate. All indexes have made their final highs between early November and this January.
The good news for the Permian Basin is that energy prices seem to want to vault over the recent highs of $84. We need a weekly close over $84..50. Crude trades today Friday at $84.91 so that could happen today.
The correction in natural gas was larger than I expected. It dropped fro $4.75 to $3.65. Today prices have edged up to $3.90. It needs a daily close over $3.95 to get going again, t hat could happen.
The wild card is whether Putin will stage as Team Biden put is this week, a minor incursion to the Ukraine. As the Ukraine President noted in response, there is nothing minor in the deaths of his citizens.
Such action would surely boost the price of oil and gas theorizing that Russia would cut back on EU natural gas to throttle any attempts at armed opposition.
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Professor Elam
Friday Jan 2 2022
Peloton desperately needs a Cody Rigsby ride to snap out of its current malaise. The at-home exercise company that boomed during the early days of the pandemic is temporarily pausing production of its bikes and treadmills starting in February, according to a CNBC report. Peloton’s stock tanked 25% after that news broke; closing at $24.22 a share, it’s given up all of its pandemic gains.
Funnily enough, the company had exactly the opposite problem last winter as it was scrambling to ship more bikes to meet the soaring demand of gym rats trying to piece together a lockdown workout.
- With some customers waiting as long as two months for their bikes, Peloton spent $420 million to buy exercise equipment manufacturer Precor to help expedite production.
- In May, Peloton announced it was dropping $400 million to build its first US factory in Ohio that would be completed in 2023.
But it clearly overestimated how many people wanted to get sweaty in their living rooms when they could get sweaty near someone’s dad on an elliptical. Demand for Peloton’s products have sagged as gyms reopened, customers balked at the high price point, and competitors flooded the market. Next thing it knew, more Pelotons were sitting on Facebook Marketplace than in delivery vans.
Zoom out: The news of a production pause follows a wave of damaging reports and rough PR for Peloton:
- On Tuesday, CNBC reported that Peloton hired consulting firm McKinsey to put the company’s cost structure through a HIIT class.
- Some of the top execs at the home workout empire have reportedly discussed laying off 41% of the sales and marketing teams, slashing underperformers in the e-commerce department, and closing retail locations.
- Unfortunate product placement in the SATC reboot, where the character Mr. Big has a heart attack and dies after a Peloton workout, didn’t help.
Looking ahead…Peloton will try to rally behind the launch of Peloton Guide, a $495 strength training program that would rival Lululemon’s Mirror. The product was supposed to launch last October, but might not arrive until April.—MM
Professor Elam 