Living in California, I am used to hearing well-earned criticism of California’s legislature for failing to control its spending, failing to pass a budget, and generally not doing its job. Candidly, I have been known to add to the criticism (here is an example of a comparison of California’s legislators to monkeys that used video clips). So, …
December 2010 archive
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/illinois-beats-california-as-most-likly-to-default/
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/initial-thoughts-on-the-2010-census/
Dec 27
CFO Incentive Compensation Not a Key Factor in Accounting Fraud
This last week, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation published an interesting paper entitled “Why Do CFOs Become Involved in Material Accounting Manipulations?. The research was conducted by four professors from the University of Pittsburg and the University of Washington. The professors started with 2,261 Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/cfo-incentive-compensation-not-a-key-factor-in-accounting-fraud/
Dec 22
HR 4853 Summaries
We have two new articles regarding the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (HR 4853). One article summarizes (i) descriptions that are more detailed than what has been summarized in the headline news regarding what this Act contains, and (ii) the costs of this substantial new law, as determined by …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/hr-4853-summaries/
Dec 22
E&Y Deserves its Lehman Trouble
New York Attorney General and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Ernst & Young. The suit charges Ernst & Young with helping Lehman Brothers engage in accounting fraud involving “the surreptitious removal of tens of billions of dollars of securities from Lehman’s balance sheet to create a false impression of Lehman’s liquidity, thereby defrauding …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/ey-deserves-its-lehman-trouble/
Dec 19
Crazy Eddie and the Financial Crisis
In my prior posting on the financial meltdown I mentioned that just about anybody by now has their own theory on what caused the financial meltdown of 2008. Mine may be a little different: The financial meltdown occurred because nobody believed that all the bankers had gone insane. I remember the first time I heard a …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/crazy-eddie-and-the-financial-crisis/
Dec 14
The Missing Word
There is a word that has been sadly missing from the national debate on how to get the US economy growing. That word is opportunity.
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/the-missing-word/
Dec 11
What is the Individual Mandate? How Will This End?
At this point, nearly everybody has heard of the individual mandate. But far less is known about what it is. The recent Federal District Court ruling by Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia relies on a very specific interpretation of what the individual mandate is. A change in the interpretation of what the mandate is also changes Judge Hudson’s conclusion. Despite …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/so-what-is-the-individual-mandate/
Dec 07
Seven Biggest Retirement Mistakes
As with most things in life, a few retirement mistakes can dominate the final results achieved. The article Seven Biggest Retirement Mistakes provides perspective on this important subject. The article provides further links to: Advice about how much retirement money is needed, An online calculator that shows whether you will run out of money, An …
Permanent link to this article: http://betweenthenumbers.net/2010/12/seven-biggest-retirement-mistakes/
Dec 28
Initial Thoughts on the 2010 Census
December 28, 2010
Christmas came a little early for statisticians and demographers with the release of the first numbers from the decennial census. These three interactive maps provide a means of understanding population movements and absolute numbers. Here are initial thoughts based on these maps. Most of the headlines commonly reported are really continuations of past trends, or …
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