Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (5954)	6/8/2002 5:41:56 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Senator Lieberman ... even threatened to get the FASB shut down. How did he propose to do that? FASB is entirely financially supported by the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF), a non-profit corporation, not a government agency. Mike, it looks like you neglected to read the links that I just provided for you in my last post. Had you read the WSJ link I provided you, you would have seen this: (Note: I am linking you to the Gorilla thread post because not everyone has the on-line subscription to the Wall Street Journal.) Message 17249383 Referring to the 1994 battle over the FASB proposal to expense stock options, the Wall Street Journal writer writes the following: A nonbinding resolution opposing the FASB rule change passed the Senate by a vote of 88-9. Its sponsor, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, later proposed legislation that would have, in effect, put the FASB out of business. Perhaps you missed all of this history as well: Accounting-rule writers grappled with the issue at least as far back as 1972. Not only weren't stock options widely used back then, but the challenge of calculating their cost was daunting. So officials decided that options needn't be treated as an expense. During the 1980s, however, stock options became increasingly popular, particularly in Silicon Valley, where high-tech start-ups often offered them not just to executives, but to employees of all ranks. In the early 1980s, the nation's major accounting firms told the Financial Accounting Standards Board that they thought stock options were clearly a form of compensation, and thus should be accounted for as an expense. By the early 1990s, there were sophisticated new methods available for projecting the long-term value of stock-option grants. Companies were beginning to use a mathematical model developed by economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes to tell employees how much their stock options were worth. Mr. Scholes later won a Nobel Prize in economics for the model. The FASB reasoned that if companies could estimate the long-term value of the options to their employees, they could also give shareholders an accounting of the long-term costs of those options. Regardless of the broader history pertaining to this issue, the local issue here is whether Tom Siebel and other insiders have been walking with any and all wealth this company has been producing ('99-'01). In my opinion they have been, but I will be happy to keep an open mind to carefully read and review posts that suggest otherwise. Finally, I have avoided making any forward looking statements, nor have I seriously looked at first quarter results (recently) other than what you and JS just posted. Best, Huey