"Every industrialized nation is putting a lot of supply on the market because they all have insolvent banks, whoops I'm not supposed to say insolvent banks, they all have banking issues"
- Rick Santelli, CNBC, about to lose his job, November 7, 2008
And I still to this day don't understand how the banks, investment banks and insurance companies like AIG were able to pretend that they were solvent. Auditors? Sarbanes-Oxley?
The market has tanked because there is no trust in the financial reports of companies. Period. How can you invest in a company if you can't believe the reports? And until there are some pretty high-profile arrests for this, and some serious accounting and auditing reforms and new regulations, it's not gonna get better.
It's not just the CEO's and CFO's I'd like to see arrested. It's the auditors too.
Trust. Without it you got nothin'.
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12 comments:
I worked at a Big 4 accounting firm for 5 years and audited a lot of Fortune 500 companies. I have to be honest - the entire thing is a complete joke. How can an auditor be truly independent if the client is paying the firm for the services? The financial statements and the processes used to create them can not be relied on. No matter what you find in an audit, the client's executive management will make it disappear if they want to. If we didn't let it go they would reduce fees, not pay, or go to one of the other Big 4 firms. It's a complete joke, that Big 4 signature on the financial statements means nothing other than the company paid a sh*tload of money to crooked accounting firm.
I think some of the funniest stuff I've ever read would have to be the lame justifications being put out about eliminating the "mark to market" requirement for recording investments. ESPECIALLY since so many of the people trying to wish it away are EMH/Miller-Modigliani fans, or at any rate got their graduate degrees from programs that push it. (FTR, I do accept EMH but only in the "weak" form. The "semi-strong" and "strong" versions are too silly to be taken seriously.)
Keith could probably start a whole thread on that, though the high end technical stuff would fly over my head, I'm sure.
And, not that FASB isn't largely a collection of shameless whores, but when they do TRY to do something sensible (as with the effect of stock options on the financials) the entire business community runs screaming like six year olds on a sugar high to the SEC or Congress to overrule them.
I have to thank you and all your left comrades for giving us "that one" because it is going to be fun to see how you spin what you have had such a great time doing which is spinning a thoughtful eye on the current president. Move on.org raised something like $100 million but "that one" is going to govern from the center and you will help guide us along with all your positive posts outlining his remarkable abilities to unite the world including Iran which sent a wonderful congratulatory letter telling "that one" what they expect so you have fun keith keep well caffinated travel a little to remind us what the real world thinks of America and lets have at it.
Your hero said that he would require community service in middle school high school and college something like re-education camps they have you know where but later on said that it would not be required so keith how you felling right now about "that one"
Being away from home, I listen to "Progressive" Radio via the internet where they have a handful of savvy talk show hosts.
http://tinyurl.com/5o7gb4
I enjoyed listening to them during the months leading up to the elections. Now, after the landslide, guess what they've been talking about.. gay marriage,dog rescue and what kind of dog Obama will bring to the White House!!! I tell you, there are monkeys everywhere: right and left. What the f*ck are these morons talking about? Is it just me? The entire f*cking country is in shambles, and what's on those monkeys mind? gay marriage and the future of puppies!!!! LOL
Gay Marriage is a Peace and Prosperity Time issue. It seems we've had neither for a long time. Can we please stop wasting our time worrying about this?
I heard there were a bunch of Prop 8 Protesters in W Hollywood on Thurs. W Hollyood does not equal America. It's Fantasy Land. I know because I go there every time I need a break from reality.
Anonymous gwk said...
"I have to thank you and all your left comrades for giving us "that one" because it is going to be fun to see how you spin what you have had such a great time doing which is spinning a thoughtful eye on the current president. Move on.org raised something like $100 million but "that one" is going to govern from the center and you will help guide us along with all your positive posts outlining his remarkable abilities to unite the world including Iran which sent a wonderful congratulatory letter telling "that one" what they expect so you have fun keith keep well caffinated travel a little to remind us what the real world thinks of America and lets have at it."
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Sounds like one of them Wasilla Hillbilly pronouncements???? Where she talks & talks & talks, but says nothing.
Kenduffelsniffenspotzen.
Chicago Tribune has a story about Deloitte and insider trading.
here's the link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-deloittenov08,0,1128075.story
the accounting issues won't change - too much vested interest in the current system. as long as managers are paid bonuses on short term performance standards, the books will be cooked.
commission sales people sell to whomever moves, not to who can actually pay. why expect anything different from upper management?
Gay Marriage is a Peace and Prosperity Time issue. It seems we've had neither for a long time. Can we please stop wasting our time worrying about this?
No, "we" can't.
If you think I'm going to happily pay higher taxes to bail out the asses of people who just voted to relegate me to second-class citizenship, think again.
I'm mobile and have nothing to lose. Lots of gay folks are productive and hard-working people who aren't willing to be the primary funders of some heterosexual socialist order that transfers wealth from our pockets to the pockets of overweight pig-faced fat-assed breeders and their larvae.
remember back in the early 2000's with Enron it was known that all these companies were cooking their books and then all of a sudden you didn't hear anymore about cooked books and how did they just come out of it. By charging ridiculous amounts for substandard and (chinese made) not worth it products to build up those profits (ie: any xbox, iphone, computers, cablevision, anything tech)in order to clear up those cooked books and then they had to answer to stock holders about all the profits. So now the chickens come home to roost from that book cookin. That in my opinion and everybody has one, is alot of the problems going on today. Those who should have died out in early 2000's were given a new lease on life but the cancer has now come back with no life saving medicine except the lying Bush (gotta get this done before my last 3 months) and the american tax payers. I have enough junk, I am still pissed about those gas prices, I don't need any clothes, oatmeal, beans and scrambled eggs are good enough for me. They have squeezed enough money out of me for lavish lifestyles big homes, fancy cars, designer clothes. If you have to ask the price you can't afford it attitude. My wallet has shut and fuck em all and the economy. I don't hear anybody wanting to help me out send a couple grand into my checking account. If I don't need it it's on the way out if not out already. Fuck the jobs they create, fuck the more money for people who look down their nose at me, I am like everyone else, I am thinking of me and if you suffer because all I can think of is me well sorry.
Anon said: "If you think I'm going to happily pay higher taxes to bail out the asses of people who just voted to relegate me to second-class citizenship, think again."
It's the dire consequences of the pillaging of America over the past two decades that matter now, whether you like it or not. I cannot fathom why any gay or straight person would want to make an issue out of something as irrelevant as marriage! If your ultimate goal is to share your life and worth with someone you love, I think you have plenty of ways to do just that. The gay community shares with the free-thinking society some major concerns that should not be overshadowed by selfish demands, no matter how legitimate.
America has just crossed a historic threshold by electing a black man to the highest office. It is now up to the freedom-loving people to make sure that America remains the land of the free, forever.
Santelli is living on borrowed time at CNBC. Pretty soon he is going to be out of a job and writing a truth blog called FinancialNewsPanic.
I love how he gets all excited when a honest broker like Schiff or Roubini comes on. Seriously, when Roubini was on, Santelli's tiny little talking head was just gushing with praise.
I sometimes get the feeling he's just testing to see how far he can go 'till they can him.
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