Monthly Archives: July 2006

Intelligent Carpet

More from the Inq., but this time I’m hoping it’s April Fools come early,

Intelligent carpet can autodiscriminate: A NEW FORM OF automated prejudice is set to make business decision-making far more efficient.

The intelligent carpet, invented in Japan, can tell bosses the age, sex and weight of the person walking across it. Experts predict that in business recruitment … the process of snap decision-making could be streamlined to achieve faster judgements.

Will being called on the carpet ever be the same?

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 1 Comment

AMD+ATI=?

My favorite chip maker bought my favorite graphics card company. In AMD has to buy ATI to survive, The Inquirer explains the strategic context of AMD’s acquisition of ATI and argues it’s all for the best:

The net effect is good for ATI, good for AMD, and good for everyone else, including all the current AMD partners. For all the analysts, deep breaths, think of your happy place. This is not bad, not bad at all, in fact it is very good. Breathe.

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I’m Back

Major thanks to George for all the interesting posts while I was away on vacation. If I wrote that much meaty stuff relating to my work … this blog would be work.

While in one sense this break was a true vacation — I had lousy internet access and didn't even try to work except for the last couple days when I went to a meeting in Geneva — it was also more prone to minor disasters and discomforts than any family vacation in recent memory. These included a 24 hour airline delay, the airline losing my luggage, the airline computer choosing to delete my return reservation for no good reason (see a pattern yet?), unpleasant issues with our rented accommodations, and of course the biggest heat wave in modern British and Swiss history (“Genève n'en finit pas de cuire” said the hoardings, and they had it right.)

The highlights of the London part of the trip were meeting old friends and seeing the new Tom Stoppard play, Rock and Roll, a superb production of a very good play. I also enjoyed going to the reconstructed Globe Theater for the first time, although the production of Anthony and Cleopatra was too much of the 'declaiming Shakespeare' type instead of the more naturalistic RSC-style 'acting Shakespeare' which I like best. Then again, maybe that's what you have to do in a big outdoor space like the Globe.

I'm not sure how much I'll plunge straight into high-volume blogging this week, especially as I will be in DC Wednesday and some of Thursday. I have to work on syllabi, pay bills, fight with the city about a permit, and of course catch up on back emails.

But meanwhile, following up on a loose end: My brother's column from July 20 straightens out the confusion about which S. Baker is who. The “Director of Lessons Learned” is not the Stewart Baker I was defending, but Stuart Baker:

Much was made last week of Stuart G. Baker's job title: Director of Lessons Learned. But it turns out his job is neither some sort of namby-pamby new agey thing, nor a stealth White House inspector general position telling everyone what they're doing wrong.

Instead, the title is an outgrowth of the White House's ” Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned ” report. And Baker, a detailee from the Department of Homeland Security who worked on that report, is now charged with coordinating the response to the report's recommendations.

So, as Emily Lattella used to say, “never mind”….

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on I’m Back

Thanks

Michael is back and will be resuming his normal level of blogging. So, my time blogging is at an end for now. Thanks to Michael for giving me this opportunity again. It was fun. I cannot imagine how Michael summons the time and intellectual resources to run this blog solo on an ongoing basis. And, of course, much thanks to all of you who read my posts. I wish that something was going on in taxland, but it isn’t. Accounting is deadly dull, but, as demonstrated by the consequences of all of the recent accounting problems, real important to our economy. Let me plug the AAOWeblog again as a great place to keep up on what’s happening from a reasonable perspective.

Finally, a correction: Karen commented on my July 22 post pointing out that, therein, I misconstrued an earlier comment that she made. Please consider reading her comment.

Thanks again. I hope that you all have some fun in what is left of Summer. Barley hasn’t indicated whether I will be allowed to….

Posted in Accounting | 1 Comment

Bureau of PricewaterhouseCoopers?

So, here is my fix. It is exactly what one would expect from a former US Treasury tax lawyer: have the SEC affirmatively protect the small investor with regard to financial information of public companies by nationalizing the audit function.

Companies would be required to prepare financial statements that, in management’s judgment, best present the company, not that are merely “generally acceptable.” (See my post of July 8.) The accounting rules would be set by a government agency (the SEC), not a private group, as today (the Financial Accounting Standards Board). These rules would be codified. The SEC, not private firms hired by the audited company, would do all audits. In appropriate cases, the SEC might even comment publicly on a stock price range that is appropriate in light of what is learned during the audit.

Whoa, socialized capitalism!?!? There’s more has a defense.

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Posted in Accounting | Comments Off on Bureau of PricewaterhouseCoopers?

Financial Motorcycle Helmets

Michael should be back in a couple of days, so it is time to start winding up. Which gets back to the my July 9 post. There, I identified my two key questions: “Is it possible to come up with accountings that investors can understand? If not, what to do?” Since then, we have been exploring the first question. Draw your own conclusion. We now turn to the second question: what to do if we cannot fix the current regime.

Karen’s comment on my post yesterday suggested that we should get rid of the public corporation, as it no longer serves a public purpose worthy of holding funds from the public: “I really wonder if it’s time to *rethink* this legal fiction and concept of these entities that are now no longer “Citizens” of any particular country…but Global Actors with allegiance to only their Corporate Profit maximization and those of their CEO and management at the expense of even their sponsors (shareholders).” To this point is the movie The Corporation, which certainly is worth viewing. I am not an expert on corporations. But, in the abstract, Karen’s comment has a lot to recommend it. Unfortunately, the public corporation plays a central role in postmodern capitalism. Removing that role would make a radical change in the play. So, less radical solutions are worth thinking about.

More after clicking.

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Posted in Accounting | 2 Comments