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CPAs MIA
Where were the giant accounting firms, the CPAs, and the rest of the accounting profession while the Wall Street towers of fraud, deception and cover-ups were fracturing our economy, looting and draining trillions of dollars of other peoples' money?
This is the licensed profession that is paid to exercise independent judgment with independent standards to give investors, pension funds, mutual funds, and the rest of the financial world accurate descriptions of corporate financial realities.
It is now obvious that the accountants collapsed their own skill, integrity and self-respect faster and earlier than the collapse of Wall Street and the corporate barons. The accountants-both external and internal-could have blown the whistle on what Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth."
The Big Four auditors knew what was going on with these complex, abstractly structured finance instruments, these collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other financial products too abstruse to label. They were on high alert after early warning scandals involving Long Term Capital Management, Enron, and others a decade or so ago.
These corporate casino capitalists used the latest tricks to cook the books with many of the on-balance sheet or off-balance sheet structured investment vehicles that metastasized big time in the first decade of this new century. These big firms can't excuse themselves for relying on conflicted rating companies, like Moody's or Standard & Poor, that gave triple-A ratings to CDO tranches in return for big fees. Imagine the conflict. After all, "prestigious" outside auditors were supposed to be on the inside incisively examining the books and their footnotes, on which the rating firms excessively relied.
Let's be specific with names. Carl Olson, chairman of the Fund for Stockowners Rights wrote in the letters column of The New York Times Magazine (January 28, 2009) that "PricewaterhouseCoopers O.K.'d AIG and FreddieMac. Deloitte & Touche certified Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. Ernst & Young vouched for Lehman Brothers and IndyMac Bank. KPMG assured over Countrywide and Wachovia. These ‘Big Four' C.P.A. firms apparently felt they could act with impunity."
"Undoubtedly they knew that the state boards of accountancy," continued Mr. Olson, "which granted them their licenses to audit, would not consider these transgressions seriously. And they were right...Not one of them has taken up any serious investigation of the misbehaving auditors of the recent debacle companies."
"Misbehaving" is too kind a word. The "Big Four" destroyed their very reason for being by their involvement in these and other boondoggles that have made headlines and dragooned our federal government into bailing them out with disbursements, loans and guarantees totaling trillions of dollars. "Criminally negligent" is a better phrase for what these big accounting firms got rich doing-which is to look the other way.
Holding accounting firms like these accountable is very difficult. It got more difficult in 1995 when Congress passed a bill shielding them from investor lawsuits charging that they "aided and abetted" fraudulent or deceptive schemes by their corporate clients. Clinton vetoed the legislation, but Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) led the fight to over-ride the veto.
Moreover, the under-funded and understaffed state boards of accountancy are dominated by accountants and are beyond inaction. What can you expect?
As for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), "asleep at the switch for years" would be a charitable description of that now embarrassed agency whose mission is to supposedly protect savers and shareholders. This agency even missed the massive Madoff Ponzi scheme.
The question of accounting probity will not go away. In the past couple of weeks, the non-profit Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)-assigned to be the professional conscience of accountancy-buckled under overt pressure from Congress and the banks. It loosened the mark-to-market requirement to value assets at fair market value or what buyers are willing to pay.
This decision by the FASB is enforceable by the SEC and immediately "cheered Wall Street" and pushed big bank stocks upward. Robert Willens, an accounting analyst, estimated this change could boost earnings at some banks by up to twenty percent. Voilà, just like that. Magic!
Overpricing depressed assets may make bank bosses happy, but not investors or a former SEC Chairman, Arthur Levitt, who was "very disappointed" and called the FASB decision "a step toward the kind of opaqueness that created the economic problems that we're enduring today."
To show the deterioration in standards, banks tried to get the FASB and the SEC in the 1980s to water down fair-value accounting during the savings and loan failures. Then-SEC Chairman Richard Breeden refused outright. Not today.
Former SEC chief accountant, Lynn Turner, presently a reformer of his own profession, supports mark-to-market or fair value accounting as part of bringing all assets and liabilities, including credit derivatives, back on the balance sheets of the financial firms. He wants regulation of the credit rating agencies, mortgage originators and the perverse incentives that lead to making bad loans. He even wants the SEC to review these new financial products before they come to market, eliminating "hidden financing."
Now comes the life insurance industry, buying up some small banks to qualify for their own large federal bailouts for making bad, risky speculations.
The brilliant Joseph M. Belth, writing in his astute newsletter, the Insurance Forum (May 2009), noted that life insurers are lobbying state insurance departments to weaken statutory accounting rules so as to "increase assets and/or decrease liabilities." Some states have already caved. Again, voilà, suddenly there is an increase in capital. Magic. Here we go again.
Who among the brainy, head up accountants, in practice or in academia, will join with Lynn Turner and rescue this demeaned, chronically rubber-stamping "profession," especially the "Big Four," from its pathetic pretension for which tens of millions of people are paying dearly?
99 Comments so far
Show AllIf Democrats had had any sense & brains and voted for Nader or McKinney, we wouldn't be witnessing this orgy of cash and bailout depravity by the Obama administration to the Wall Street conglomerates, the same ones that financed his last campaign and will finance his next.
But brains & sense are two things Democrat voters lack. They'd rather vote for a candidate just to have the first black man in the White House, even if the man is one of the most crafty, cynical and corrupt con-artists to ever occupy the office.
You're so correct, obusha.
Obama's as much a corporatist as the rest of them. It explains how he was propped onto the national stage, and into the Oval Office, in such a relatively short amount of time.
Obama's selections of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to head his Treasury and National Economic Council, respectively, and their horrific bailout program ("TARP 2.0"), is evidence enough.
Alas, you are right, Democratic voters are as much of a problem as those who vote for members of the GOP.
Starting with a total public gift to the bankster criminals of $2 tril., a 10% vote win for Nader & McKinney would have cut the gift down to $1.5 tril. A 15% vote win would have cut it to $1 tril. A 20% vote win to $0.5 tril. By voting our conscience, we elevate the power of our conscience to influence public policy. Shutting our conscience into the closet and voting for the triangulating Demok is only asking for more trouble, which is exactly what we got.
Regarding the accounting community, it's a familiar story: A modest necessity turned into a bloated parasitic appendage.
Vote third party, don't throw your vote away if you really support progressive views.
The greater a win third parties get, the weaker the corporate elite are. Of course, they will out fighting, and they have hired guns (Blackwater etc) on their side.
I have no regrets, I voted for Nader, and Obama has not made fundamental changes to the Bush regime policies.
Something has to change, and it won't if the majority of people will support the two mainstream corporate parties.
Vote third party.
Absolutely, how does one work for change by continuing the status quo?
Ralph Nader again shows his worth. Ah yes, CPA's those anonymous "bean counters" on whose integrity we all count (the pun was intended!) for the right price turned their heads the other way and (in the case of Arthur Andersen and Enron) were more than glad to facililtate the deceit of the high priests of Mamon.
So chalk up accountants as one more class of "good Germans" assisting the perverse rulers of the American Reich. Betcha won't hear Ralph Nader on Marketplace, CNBC, CNN, or the Nightly Business Report.
Poet
Of course we won't hear Ralph Nader. They bring in all the pundits, who sound like they have all the answers. Who wants to listen to Ralph, who is not TV soundbite worthy. He just quietly tells it like it is, like a still small voice. Obama would do well to listen to Mr. Nader. He wouldn't win any popularity contests with the powers that be, but he would have some idea of what's going on and how to act to alleviate some of our problems.
I wonder if Obama has access to CD.
"I wonder if Obama has access to CD."
He probably does but he's too busy following his corrupt advisers to put his intelligence to work. He's probably busy looking at Faux Noise and Wall $treet to feed his pig trough.
When I was growing up my Dad seemed to have a lot of respect for the accounting profession. One of his earlier jobs out of college was as a recruiter and he'd tell me how when they looked for future executives they only went to the top schools--all Ivey league--where they only interviewed accounting and engineering majors. Relating to me his impression of the role of accountants, he'd stress the no bullshit aspect of the job where it was the only place in a company you got to "learn the guts of a business." In other words, the kind of factual information upon which good business decisions are based.
I worked as an internal accountant--I don't have a CPA--but I think it's true that whatever side you're on that accounting for the last 30 or so years is mainly about making the numbers corroborate the wisdom of management decisions, assumptions, and often, just plain whimsy. It's all less factual and much more "creative" than my Dad ever dreamed.
I am surprised you could get or keep a job as an honest accountant, even an internal one. My husband graduated with a 3.954 GPA, became an accountant with steel manufacturing firm, saved the company $60,000 the first 3 weeks and in the meantime discussed the lack of 3 different accounting controls with the comptroller of the company. Just a month later, he was let go for a "lack of work" in tax season. What was the comptroller's verbal response to the lack of financial controls? "Oh we'll catch it when there's a problem" After the 1st semester any accounting student knows GAAP is there to make sure the problems don't come into existence to begin with. Even though my husband has a glowing letter of recommendation from this place, saying he was let go for a lack of work, he still can't get even an internship someplace. I finally started telling people as we can see from the current financial mess, it must be because companies don't need(want) honest accountants.
"I am surprised you could get or keep a job as an honest accountant..."
I see what you mean--but honestly, I don't see it as primarily an issue of honesty as it is one of independence. What I loved about accounting and being an accountant was the idea that you could work in a corporate culture and yet still hold allegience to a higher set of rules and principles that were based on rationality and reason.
So, it's funny you should mention GAAP. I think the heart of the problem in accounting today--and maybe in our society in general--has been the moving away from conformity to accepted standards and principles toward conformity simply to the perogatives of power.
"...it must be because companies don't need(want) honest accountants."
I would say companies don't want independent workers.
The most recent change in the rules by the Financial Accounting Standards Board basically lets corporations gaze into their crystal ball and foretell what the value of very poor investments that have plunged in value since they were obtained will be at some point in the future.
Assets that were lingering on the books at a fraction of their cost can now be marked up substantially because some corporate fortune teller has tossed the bones, read the tea leaves and noted to strong life line on the palm of the corporation (after all corporations have personhood so they must also have palms and lifelines on those palms.)
You just have to wonder how much of the big gain in profitability that Wells Fargo claimed Thursday was from marking up poor performing assets instead of the claims that buying tanking Wachovia had improved their loan business.
The move by the FASB is a move in exactly the wrong direction, it’s more deregulation, it’s allowing corporations to put more wrong information into the market, which distorts the supposedly sacred free market place and it’s just another tool for the banksters to use so they can make more (questionable?) loans without having more REAL ASSETS to secure those loans.
The actions by the politicians inhabiting Washington D.C. today will have one long lasting impact; the rehabilitation of Herbert Hoover’s record of making the most wrong decisions in the face of an economic crisis.
Sioux Rose
MADHOOSIER: Apart from the slur against soothsayers, basically a sound post. And incidentally, I had the exact same sense about Wells-Fargo. We are living in times where "perceived" wealth is trumping the genuine element, so any twist in public perception is tantamount to great gains. Alas, Faust has returned in its 21st century version.
Arthur Anderson, as the principle accounting firm for Enron, cooked the books to deceive investors right up until the end. They were put out of business for that criminal activity, but wait. They re-incorporated in the Caymen Islands as Accenture and now do a thriving business once again.
Just one small example of the lack of a justice system in our business community. I am familiar with this particular case as my own company hired Accenture, and, after spending almost $400,000,000 ( yup, no misprint) and a year and a half with them we found their suggestions for streamlining and improvement to be simply outsourcing, impractical in our unique business.
Bring America Back !!!!.....I think Arthur Anderson was given a reprieve and
an overturn on that culpability judgement, but was hurt and seriously damaged enough by the Lawsuit that it couldn't reincorporate under that same Name.
Anderson was one of the Big Three or Four CPA Firms.
One of it's Partners, Harry Walker, went on to become The Comptroller General
of the US==which is the legislative body better known as the GAO==the Government Accountability Office. Walker has since departed, and is a frequent commentator
on TV Shows advocating the transfer of the US Social Secuirty Fund over to,
shall we say Big Corps, Big Insurance, duh-=-Big Privates. !!!! Holy Cow !
I don't know about Harry... but there was a David M. Walker former head of the GAO (who was I think appointed by Clinton)
Krugman mentions him--not by name, in his excellent book "The Great Unraveling:"
"We may never know what really went on in the energy task force (Cheney task force led back in 2001) since the Bush administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep us from finding out. At first the non partisan GAO, which is supposed to act as an internal watchdog, seemed determined to pursue the matter. But after the mid term election, according to the newsletter The Hill, Congressional Republicans approached the agency's head and threatened to slash his budget unless he backed off."
And the same Walker would go on to lead a well funded parade across America for balanced budgets.
Should we go ahead and include Walker and his whole parade among the MIA?
Hey Red Rick, you are always in my business. For instance yesterday you mention my "history" while insulting me. I said nothing then, but now Red Rick, Since you are always up my left nostril, here then-
What CORPORATION do you work for that pays Accenture half a billion in accounting/outsourcing fees? Caterpillar? Their client list includes most of the Fortune One Hundred I believe. And they are ALL multi-national rapists! Which one Mr. Righteous? Mr always better than? Which Corporation do you profit from via your employment? ("my own company")
So FUNNY! Saint Red Rick the Nader-Loving Obama-Hater works FOR, that is advances the interests OF, a rapist Corporation!!! Hypocrite.
I love life. Stay out of my nostrils Red Rick. This ain't the first time I've embarrassed you.
Avoid mirrors, they reflect you.
What's the matter with you? All you seem to have fun doing is bashing Ralph Nader for a living and then harassing folks like Red Rick and JenniferBedingfield who actually are very helpful. We all have to work for what we can get an opportunity at. However, corporations have a limit too and just because big corporations are about all that some people have for employment opportunities gives the corporations no right to exploit their employees the way they're doing. It doesn't matter who voted for whom. The fact remains that the worse things get, the more easily Nader can prove that he was right. He's not running for office right now and has every right to inform us. In fact, our own children will most likely need the invaluable information that Nader is providing us. The young voters may have overwhelmingly voted for Obama but it will be interesting to see how pissed off they are at this man in 4 or 8 years depending upon Obama's tenure as they find themselves with no future that their parents had. Since you have nothing useful to talk about, I suggest you leave us alone and let us share our experiences with each other and for other readers out there to learn about. Go to dailykos or huffpost for all your Nader bashing needs.
Thank you for the rationality, but I fear it wasted on one like this with obvious serious maturity problems if not something even more troubling.
Odd that he professes wisdom yet cannot fathom how a large corporation employs thousands of blue collar workers.....I am, in fact, a proud union member, IBEW, and do my small part to keep the gas and electricity flowing in Northern California.
Hi Red Rick. Some people don't understand why people are forced to work for where they'd otherwise choose not to. For example, in Loudoun County, VA where my husband and I live in, we've witnessed more small businesses going under the knife and even being pushed into bankruptcy at the same time the county has gone from rural to suburban sprawl. The big defense contracting companies and some of the DoD government agencies are taking over a lot of the farmland and if we have to earn a living and keep up with the rising costs of living, we have no choice but to work for them. azjoe will probably laugh at me for driving to Arlington everyday to work but the truth is we can either go bankrupt or accept the contract offer and hope that we're not exploited at. I feel sorry for CA and NY as the pouring bad news on the economy in those two states continue unabated. Maybe the petro collapse will bring back local small businesses and even the truly independent accountants rather than those big accounting firms. I just hope the transition doesn't get ugly.
Ms. Waters, I wouldnt worry about the rejoinders of the childish and almost child-like Joe, water off a ducks back frankly. His every effort sends me into gales of laughter in truth and exposes him so blatantly as to make one wonder how he does not see what a ridiculous figure he becomes.
Great idea. I just wanted to make it clear as to why a lot of us work where we have to so that somewhere along the line long term solutions can be worked out. Thanks again. :)
Work from the inside to change a corporate culture is important work. I have faced down Directors, a Vice President and , once, my own Utilities President in open meeting. I am careful to let the facts speak for themselves but have caused a few head shakes, more than a few wide eyed reactions from the attendees and ,hopefully, a few instances of backbone building.
You mean you work for PG & E? You who follow me around the threads questioning my morality? Insulting my character and you work for PG & E?
I thought they gave $250,000 to defeat prop 8.
That they operate nuclear reactors and screw their customers.
Are an ugly radioactive monopoly.
They are all of the above. Enjoy your paycheck.
If you did not insult me at every turn, I'd not wipe you off my feet.
Wanna throw it in my face I use electricity? Yeah I do.... PG&E's. And I could not afford to heat my apt for the last 3 years you.....I won't say what I think now. Suffice to say you work for a company that's helped keep me cold. For Your Profits. And I only thought I did not like you. Good Job on Prop Eight.
I'll get my gay friends to pray for your health.
So who do YOU work for? Let's see how clean you really are ! Maybe if you'd quit your uncalled-for Nader bashing and grow up would you not be getting your butt kicked. I guess boot kicking your butt won't teach you anything, will it ?
CarlaWaters, did you REALLY admit on line here that "me and my husband work for the DoDeath?" On this thread right now?
Carla, you work for the War Dept, the Death Department, the US don't defend itself.
Thanks for your honesty, I'm gonna go puke, then get high on pot I grew.
Please don't bomb me. You are a Hypocrite, calling ME names for voting for Obama and you work for the DoDEATH?
Try to get that PLANK out of your eye. That will help with the Blindness.
GodInHeaven.
My husband and I will be happy to move to a non-DoD related contractor as soon as the budget is set for it. See, Obama has no intentions of changing course on war spending nor for that matter providing enough for non-DoD related areas. So where's all that hope, change, and choice you keep crowing about? Besides, not everyone in DoD likes the way things are going? We do our job but the pols abuse it just like they abuse the troops for their own dirty agenda. Don't blame us. Blame the pols for your misfortune.
"I'm gonna go puke, then get high on pot I grew."
Too bad Obama ain't gonna push to legalize pot so that you won't worry about getting bombed by the terrorist DEA.
Obama was for legalizing Cannabis before he flip-flopped against it on the campaign trail well before the election. In fact, Obama recently said that he's against legalizing pot and that it won't stimulate the economy:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/DrugReporter/133698/obama_won%27t_legalize_pot,_wonders_if_online_community_is_a_bunch_of_stoners/
Barry refuses to acknowledge the industrial benefits of cannabis. If he's such a "Constitutional scholar", he should know better that the Constitution was written on hemp paper and that it's still lasting today except that the only thing killing it all is the politics which Barry refuses to put aside. In fact, Barry is nothing more than a coward as he clearly has shown all last year throughout the campaign trail where he folded issue after issue and during his presidency so far. At this rate, Barry will lose even his own home state by 2012 should he not face a serious primary. He was lucky last time but this time the GOP will gut him like a trout. He's burned his own base and he's strengthening his opposition base.
What a maroon you are, Joe, when others are embarrassed for you perhaps you might stop and reconsider your self destructive ways.
Here is a list of California energy providers, jackass:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/links/utilities.php?pagetype=utility#municipal
I do not follow you around kid, quite the reverse in fact, though I do reserve the right to correct your bullshit.I only began to dialogue with you again after you swore to do so in a civil fashion. My bad, really, I should have known you incapable of such.
By the by, you claimed to live in Los Angeles in a post of about a month past, so that would be Southern California Edison supplying your lights. You simply must do a better job of remembering your own lies. Get a job and you could probably afford your utility bill, though my union, IBEW, works for the ratepayer as well as the worker. Or do you still live above your mother's garage?
I have found most gays to be discerning and tasteful folk, I doubt any would call you friend.
CarlaWaters. Nice of you to come to Red Rick's Rescue..After he has insulted me 1,000 times, first as ardee & then Red Rick after he got 86'd by CD. 95% of the time I don't respond, but today I did. And there you are! No coincidence, because you too are an insulting aggressive person.
I've posted on CD for 8 years on & off.
But in the last 6 months I saw a first. This-Nader Loving Obama Haters driving everyone else off the threads. Like YOU said, get lost. Ya know what, "fill in the two blanks here Carla"
Yes, NLOH's drove everyone else off with Red Rick on point, as the ultra ugly ardee, he and many "packed up" using insults to drive anyone off CD that disagreed with them. Familiar pack animal?
Check this out, I won't be shoved around. Not by people in packs that rely on aggression and insults.
And Double-Click on this, Nader would have been a blip on my screen, but I got attacked on CD about Ralph, so I started digging into his finances, found a cess-pool and put it out on the Web where it sure is getting around! Thank You from Ralph!
Attack me more, you did actually, and I started digging into Cisco and connected it's board of directors to Lockheed in 15 minutes. I don't care about nader. stay off my shadow or I'll care more and start a web-site. New Nader Skeletons From The Closet. If anyone dares me. I'll have it up and running in about 60 days. Right now I don't care, your call. Actually rereading my post I want to do it. I'll know more. But I'm still an insult away, a go someplace else away from doing it. I never made an empty promise in my life. Choices. Hope. Change.
Have a real pleasant evening Carla.
a.z.joe.
I don't see Red Rick insulting anyone. You, on the other hand, are too obsessed with twisting Nader's actions in life against him. So what if he took money from Cisco? At least he put the money to better use. Maybe Nader wanted to actually reform Cisco since he knows something about the company a great deal of us don't. As for you calling me an insulting aggressive person, LOL ! You have no idea as to what you're talking about. No point in giving you a boot kicking since nothing registers with you. I guess you're so scared to admit that Nader was right all along while the electorate insulted and ignored him and now we're all paying the price for such foolishness. I see you're so scared to admit that your bashing Nader as somehow a means to justify Obama's stupid moves is falling apart. Hope? Change? Choices? You're lost sir.
CarlaWaters
You work for the Department of Death. Please don't address me on these threads.
Talk to your husband who works for the Department of Death you said.
How do you sleep at night?
I work for myself, pay no taxes.
I'm poor. I can't heat my home in the winter, that is to the PG& E monopoly that I can't pay.
But I sleep perfecltly. If you do while you work for the Department of Death, you are very morally bankrupt.
Must be exciting dinner table converstation. How's Bombs Carla? Okay Fred, How's missiles?
So Carla, I guess you post from DoD computers while you work? "Hi Common Dreams from the Killing Fields."
I admit, though I know Nader's biggest fans are Republicans, you being a nader cheerleader in the War Industry is funny,
No wonder his MIC investments don't bug you.
I hope you realize that even those who don't work for DoD are not free of the DoD's influence. And not everyone who serves or works in DoD is a death person unlike what you claim. Let's see Obama cut down the DoD budget and actually increase the budget for non-DoD areas where we can get employment not controlled directly or indirectly by DoD. Until then, you have no business lecturing us.
What bright and illuminating rejoinders you post in response to sewer water responses from Joe...Also what a waste of intellect, Ms. Waters. Perhaps we might dialogue on other, more pertinent topics on other threads in future.
Joe is correct ( a rarity) on one thing though. I do find it hard to keep my contempt for him hidden. He now posts the myth that I stalked him when the truth is hard copied in the archives, and quite plain. He and his fellow mudslinger, Nebraska Nathan, stalked all the Nader supporters during the primary and throughout the campaign , posting both irrelevant personal insults and untruths about Nader as well. You can see by the way he distorts and slanders your own words exactly what I am speaking to....
Well, back to the ignore file for him, and on to better use of time.
Hi Red Rick,
You are right. azjoe just doesn't get it. I'll probably leave him and that Nebraska Nathan dude alone as well since those kind of people make even Dennis the Menace look like an angel. I just thought I'd nail that user and make it clear why a lot of us work for who we'd otherwise be able to choose not to work for. The truth is we all pay taxes whether you work for the DoD or not and since more tax dollars goes towards DoD thanks to our pathetic pols, my take is we're all in this together. I didn't want to have to work for DoD but my choices were very limited and as I discussed in David Lindorf's article, it's the pols and corrupt business leaders that abuse our hard work and generosity so blaming you and I for working for the companies is just plain wrong. I admire Nader for at least diverting money to worthwhile causes even as I get more disgusted with Obama breaking his campaign promises. Thanks for the heads up. :)
Whoa there, I don't want to get on anyone's shit list here, but it seems to me that you have a glaring double standard. It's okay for you to work for the Dept. of Defense, furthering the interests of militarism to receive a paycheck. But for Mr. Obama to do the same thing is wrong and you vilify him.
I'm not going to defend Obama's position but I wouldn't defend yours, either. I will say that I believe Mr. Obama has a four-year plan, that he hasn't played even a fraction of the cards in his hand, and I DO see positive change happening. Slowly yes, but if the most risky thing people like you are willing to do is vote for Nader, then no wonder.
Nader got 698,798 votes this year. If everyone on Common Dreams (165,440 members) voted for him, then got one hundred of their friends to vote for him, that still wouldn't have been enough. Now if everyone on CD got 400 of their friends to vote for him he might have made it. (Obama won with 66,882,230 votes, and I'm sure you realize that it's not just the total popular votes but electoral votes, which are questionable.) Why do we speak of Mr. Nader as if he actually could have gotten elected? He is merely political Aspercreme for the conscience.
I think Mr. Nader is a great guy whose best chance of having an influence on government is exactly what he is doing now, being a citizen activist and advocate. I even voted for him, just not this time.
Why defend or defeat anyone's position? We all pay taxes so we all work for the government and DoD. If you don't want to be another hypocrite, then don't pay your taxes.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
The problem with that argument is taxes provide for a lot of our critical services. What is needed is making sure our tax dollars are well spent on more of our basic needs and not wasted on warfare and bailing out Wall Street.
The shit list is not for honest and sincere expressions of ones opinion. We can agree or not with civility and honesty.
No, that list is for the likes of liars, hypocrites and morons like Joe and Nathan, who now that I think about it, may very well be one and the same. Ironic that, as they once accused Thomas More and I of being the same individual.
It may be that Andersons were unlucky (or the other big four lucky) to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Enron was their client, and they gave their seal of approval, but do you think the others would not have done, or done anything different?
Which raises the question, why is anyone giving them squillions of dollars?
BTW, Accenture also has an IT (Information Technology) arm, which is exactly the set-up as before with Andersons, and of course also registered in the Cayman Islands (so nothing suspicious there...) Anyway I was working on one of their projects and, having worked on an Andersons project before, I can tell you they are set up in exactly the same way. They have a contract that will cost half-a-billion, and has been going on for a couple of years, that I seriously doubt will ever be finished, and that I would happily have tendered for on a fixed price contract for $20 million, hired about four to six extra competent people, and finished in a year. And then retired on the spoils.
$400 million ? Yikes ! How much did your company cut on employees' salaries to spend that kind of money? I'm not surprised that your company resorted to outsourcing given that they tied themselves to the biggest fan of outsourcing Accenture. Any company that pays a fraud like Accenture and then outsources its employment deserves to be divested. It's like parents sacrificing their own children just to get rich. I wish you the best of luck sir. If I were you, I'd probably find another company to work for as that's usually a sign that the company's about to go belly up. Of course, that's assuming that there is a better company in your area. Good luck.
In the case of my own company, Accenture put 83 people throughout our range to analyze and make suggestions. After , I believe, 380 million dollars spent they decided that outsourcing was in order ( surprise!) but every firm they brought in to take over a portion of the business wanted enormous sums of money to do what we already do far less expensively. As a public utility has a duty to its rate payers Accenture was sent packing having accomplished almost nothing for a huge sum of money.
The software systems they installed are troublesome still, far more complex than our legacy systems, and the training continues with everyone complaining bitterly. The President of the Utility, who was the chief impetus behind the hiring of Accenture, and himself a former Enron guy, left suddenly to take over an international energy company and the Corporate President took over the presidency of the utility as well. The only upper management guy who fought against Accenture left as well, he at least is missed.
I can't stand Accenture as it is and my husband would always want to throw something at the TV every time another Accenture commercial used to come up. He and I were especially disgusted with the ones having Tiger Woods in them.
I've worked with software engineers myself and know what you're referring to. Both my husband and I can never stand the fact that Big Business will accept the most flawed versions of software. Sure, it's initially cheap but no matter how many times I try to bring up the issues of long term costs that I point out, in the end my recommendations are dismissed and seldom considered. I'll bet it's the same with accounting. Throw out the good advisers and accept cheapskates. Maybe I ought to consider working for a big accounting firm just to figure out what goes on in these companies.
By the way, my husband and I work in DoD and Micro$oft is the standard technologies while UNIX, despite the fact that it's more secure and would actually save long term costs, gets less of a say. Sorry, but due to the rising costs of living, getting a non-DoD job that pays well and offers benefits is getting harder to come by.
Give 'em hell Ralph. If I ever had a vote in Pulitzer's for commentary, I'd be stuffing the box with your name. (That's how your opponents win elections right?). Man, I love the way you cut through the bullshit. Last time I saw you on television was late election night when you made a remark something of this nature. "Will President Obama be an Uncle Sam and serve the people or an Uncle Tom and serve the corporations?" At the time I thought, oh shit--that was a bit low, if not racist. But I took it for what (I felt) it was meant to convey. Frustration--at where this country was heading. And yet, you still keep on scrapping to bring about justice in America. I just read a book on the Socialist candidate for president Eugene Debs, and all the hell he caught back in the twenty's and thirty's. That crazy fool ran five times for president. Hopefully you'll do the same Mr. Nader--we need someone running who's not afraid to call bullshit for what it is.
I'm sick and tired of Common Dreams publishing these articles by Nader after the election. It doesn't buy them any credibility with me. Where was common dreams (and all the other supposed 'progressive' websites) when these words could have actually made a difference with the general public and maybe effected the outcome and tone of the election?
They were exactly where the corporate elite (and the democratic party leadership) wanted them to be. They were hiding anything that might upset the applecart.
I say shame on common dreams for not giving Nader a voice when it could have counted, and their hypocritical attempt to get legitimacy now after their unabashed support for the democratic party leadership (we'd be in the same boat whether is was Hillary, Obama, and maybe even McCain).
Mr. Nader, thank you for your insightful and thoughtful words over the years that illuminated the problems facing our planet.
Too bad people are easily distracted by trivial issues that take them away from the important issues that are critical for our long term survival.
www.NotOneMore.US
Bring America Back !!!!...By way of education, let us advise Mr Nader to send his letter to the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts--the Ethics and Standards Board of the CPA profession. NO, not AIPAC==it's the AICPA !!
**Long ago, the AICPA ruled that CPA Firms, in addition to certifying the financial statements and operations of Client Corporations and businesses, could perform interim advisory work for the Same Corportations, without
endangering the reliability or dependability of the fairness of their opinions on the Same Corporations' statements of operations.
**Of course, since CPA Firms need only do a fractional minimum of tests on the accounts and operations to issue their opinions, and qualify it up the kazoo at that, they soon learned the clients were willing to pay out the real Big Bucks for the so called, Interim Work and Advisorys from the CPA firms in their
Management Advisory Depts. CPA Firms began raking in untold revenues by billing their client corporations for the Interim Services. Much more big bucks than their annual financial statement audits !!! CPA associate billable hours range into that of Attorney billable hours, just to give comparison !!
**So, you know that makes CPA Firms no longer independent of the Client Corporations, I know that, but the AICPA does not know that, or want to
know that !! When it came to certification of the year end statements,
how could they refuse a good opinion to such good paying Clients????
**Sure as hell, Mr Nader the Big Four knew of the Financial Messes, as well as CPA Firms accross the Nation..but did they Warn stockholders, mortgage holders, ==Nope,, no warnings from Wall Street to Main Street !!!!
Feel free to look up the location of the central and regional offices of the\
AICPA, let them know about their Ethics, Fairness Responsibility, and
Financial Standards rules and provisions..........they ARE guilty !!!
Having taken Accounting 101 when I was in college, I learned that there are a lot of loopholes that are easily exploitable and could thus give big monied crooks lots of possibilities to cook their books. Like Finance 101, the principles of ethics are often not taken into account. I have heard that the finance and accounting courses have been further revised to make crooked thinking look "normal" while painting independent judgements and standards as somehow "meddlesome". When I was taking Accounting 101 and bringing up the issues of exploiting the loopholes in my class conferences as did other classmates, we were threatened of receiving failing grades for being whistleblowers. How many younger students are about to find themselves duped yet again or threatened for speaking out? I know this all may sound confusing but the college courses in accounting and finance have been fudged and are being fudged even more to make it convince first time learners to think that these bad practices Nader discussed are some how "acceptable" and even "good for business."
My younger cousin last year took an Accounting 101 course himself and his professor was always reluctant to accepting the way the course was to be taught. He was a big supporter of Ralph Nader but was not allowed to include Nader's ideas into teaching Accounting 101 despite the fact that Nader was right all along. We need to save Nader's articles and pass these onto our children. In fact, I think we need to learn from Nader's thinking so that we can counter the greedy folks on Wall Street.
I seriously doubt that either you or Jennifer really paid attention in college. Nader's thinking is flawed because while he claims to be against the greedy folks on Wall Street, he still takes money from them shamelessly. You two young ladies need to go back to school, quit cutting classes and pay attention, and get out of your purist thinking and learn the meaning of practical and realistic.