A422-522 Intermediate Accounting 2

Wow.  The classroom is really full.  Combined enrollment is 58, and there are only 60 seats in the room.  If you come late, you don’t have much option as to where you sit.

This is a very key time in financial accounting and regulation.  The U.S. is very heavy into regulation.  Why?   The policy of the U.S. government is to force companies to act in certain ways.  Actually, the U.S. economy is more heavily regulated than almost any other country.  Since one aspect of capitalism is that companies and individuals have complete freedom in the process of capital allocation, I guess it is reasonable to conclude that the U.S. does not have an environment condusive to capitalism.

I don’t know if you yet have visited CFO.COM to sign up for e-mail accounting alerts, but you should if you haven’t.  A recent e-mail alert pointed to an article in the January edition of the magazine.  Titled Which One When?, it discusses possible issues to look for in 2009.  Please make sure that you read this article.

In going over the syllabus, I pointed out that this course is more than simply studying the details of particular accounting rules, and taking tests over them.  There will be many learning experiences that will help you learn how to apply the accounting rules as well as come to an appreciation for what the rules accomplish.  Consequently, this course is going to be a fair amount of work.

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In class I showed an animated film, Hariold Rosenbaum, Chartered Accountant Extreme.  Chartered accountants are the British/Canadian/Australian/South African equivalent to the U.S. CPA.

The five episodes in the series are:

1. Audit Of Evil (aired December 22, 2005)
2. Depreciation To Death (aired December 29, 2005)
3. The Taxable Trap (aired January 5, 2006)
4. Ledger Lad Liquidation (aired January 12, 2006)
5. Dam: It’s Exploding (aired January 19, 2006)

We’ll have a class discussion on these in Thursday’s class.

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It is so important ot have a framework for remembering where everything goes in the financial statements.  I have relied upon the financial statement equations for my framework.

A = L + SHE

R – CGS – S&A = Operating income

Operating income + int rev – int exp + G – L – income tax expense = NI

Beg Cash ± OA ± IA ± FA = End Cash

Beg SHE ± changes = End SHE

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