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.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sciAticA errAticA who wrote (65306)	7/5/2006 4:04:24 PM
From: CalculatedRisk	Respond to of 110194

Senator Loserman's legacy ... accounting scandals. Congress and the Accounting Wars pbs.org In 1993, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposed closing an accounting loophole that allowed companies to avoid recording stock options on their balance sheets. According to a Merrill Lynch study, expensing stock options would have slashed profits among leading high-tech companies by 60 percent on average. Corporate America aligned with the accounting industry to fight the FASB proposal, with the result that in 1994, the Senate, led by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), passed a non-binding resolution condemning the proposal by a vote of 88-to-9. "It wasn't an accounting debate," says Jim Leisenring, the vice chairman of FASB from 1988 to 2000. "We switched from talking about, 'Have we accurately measured the option?' or, 'Have we expensed the option on the proper date?' to things like, 'Western civilization will not exist without stock options,' or, 'There won't be jobs anymore for people without stock options.' ... People tried to take the argument away from the accounting to be just plainly a political argument." "It was the first time that accounting principles had become very, very much influenced by commercial interest and political interest," James Hooton, who was then chief of Andersen's worldwide auditing, tells FRONTLINE. "If you move accounting and accounting standards into the political environment, then you've lost control over whether those standards are the best standards."

To: sciAticA errAticA who wrote (65306)	7/5/2006 4:19:16 PM
From: gregor_us	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 110194

Lopez Obrador Leads After 47.3% of Mexico Vote Count. July 5 (Bloomberg) -- Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador leads the Mexican presidential election after a recount of 47.3 percent of ballot results, the Federal Electoral Institute said. Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution had 37.1 percent of the vote while Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party had 34.4 percent, the institute said. The institute didn't say which regions the recounted votes were from. Preliminary results -- released on July 3 after counting 98.5 percent of ballots -- showed Calderon, who vows to maintain President Vicente Fox's pro-business policies, led Lopez Obrador by about 1 percentage point, or 402,708 votes. Calderon had 36.38 percent while Lopez Obrador, who has promised to increase government spending to aid the poor, had 35.34 percent, according to the preliminary count. Both candidates claimed victory. The electoral institute said yesterday that it excluded 2.58 million votes from the preliminary count because the tally sheets that contained those votes had inconsistencies such as illegible markings. If included in the preliminary count, those votes would have narrowed Calderon's lead over Lopez Obrador to 257,532 votes, or about 0.6 percentage point. Those votes will be included in the recount, authorities said.