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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (466807)	3/27/2009 11:42:27 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574302

But the government isn't a corporation. So things like reporting rules don't exist. Of course they do. Not sure where you got that idea. I've conducted audits of many governmental entities -- libraries, utilities, small cities, others -- and the reporting requirements are just as stringent as for financial accounting. Just as FASB sets the rules for corporate entities, GASB (the Governmental Accounting Standards Board) sets the rules for governmental entities. The rules are just as stringent, but different and with differing objectives. You are making the claim that, despite the money supply, any deficit automatically winds up as debt. I've made no such claim. You are totally misunderstanding the argument. It isn't how it "winds up" that matters. It is the status of the at this instant. When GM lists a liability on its balance sheet they're disclosing that they owe the money today, they are not presenting on a pro forma basis how things may look after the liability is extinguished. A "liability" is an obligation to pay at some future time. The accounting rules in effect for a given entity may not require the reporting of a liability (e.g., SSA or on a lesser scope a business reporting on the Cash accounting method or certain hybrid methods). But that in no way changes the existence of the liability. It just isn't reported. If SSA were following the accounting rules established for any private pension plan, they would be required to report as a liability the discounted amount due future retirees for the SS taxes they've already paid in. And the auditors would qualify the opinion for "going concern" issues.