First Looks category archive

Fruitcakes. All fruitcakes.

Fiduciary smiduciary.

Disregard market value. Just make stuff up:

U.S. accounting rule makers made it easier for banks to limit losses, but in an unexpected move they bowed to critics and backtracked on one proposal that would have let companies ignore market prices in some cases.

The vote by the Financial Accounting Standards Board followed a debate in which members of Congress pushed for steps to help banks weighed down by troubled assets, while some investor groups warned that the plans would allow executives to cover up losses. The rules change spurred Thursday’s stock-market rally.

From an interview I heard on Marconi’s Magic Box this morning, but which I cannot find to cite (I’ll keep looking):

“My only hope is that it does less damage than it’s going to do.”

“You’re (persons who ignore market value–ed.) disguising reality.”

Read more »

Taxes are the fees for living in civilized society.

Prem Sikka in the Guardian on corporate tax dodgery (emphasis added):

To generate wealth, at the very least, three kinds of capital need to be invested. Shareholders invest finance capital and expect to receive a return. Markets exert pressure for this to be maximised. Employees invest human capital and expect to receive a return in the shape of wages and salaries. Society invests social capital (health, education, family, security, legal system) and expects a return in the shape of taxes. Over the years, corporate tax rates have been reduced, but the return on social capital is under constant attack by tax avoidance schemes. The aim is to transfer the return accruing to society to shareholders. Companies have reported higher profits, not because they undertook higher economic activity or produced more desirable goods and services, but simply by expropriating the returns due to society.

None so far tonight.

MalkeH talking about his or her father’s reaction to Fox News. Note that the father, having grown up in Germany before World War II, had been raised as a Hitler Youth, though he later outgrew the indoctrination.

Godwin’s Law does not apply, because it is a historical reference, not invective:

Read more »

WATB want a do-over.

John Cole.

These people are nuts.

Via The TechScoop.

I love this phrasing (emphasis added):

For weeks, investors have been expecting regulators to change accounting rules that would allow banks to recoup some losses already taken on illiquid mortgage assets, making Thursday’s official decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board almost a nonevent, analysts said.

There ain’t no “recouping” about it. There is nothing to recoup.

The banks don’t want to admit that they screwed the pooch a long time ago.

What they want to do is say,

“Hey, you see that rusted out 1973 Chevy Impala over there–you know, the one with the blown engine and the broke rear axle what I wouldn’t of bought in the first place if I hadn’t a been drunk on pay for non-performance?

“Well, from now on, it’s a slightly used 2003 Bentley, and that’s how I’ve going to price it. That way, I must not be as stupid as I look. Take that, suckers.”

Here.

Playing doctor behind the barn is not the same thing as being a pornographer.

Without the ACLU, these kids might have felony records already.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a prosecutor from filing child pornography charges against three northeastern Pennsylvania teenagers who appeared in racy photos that turned up on classmates’ cell phones.

U.S. District Judge James Munley ruled against Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr., who has threatened to pursue felony charges against the girls unless they agree to participate in a five-week after-school program.

Support the ACLU here.

Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut east of 2nd, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p.

Travel day for me, so hoist one for me.

Light bloggery.

Created by Sassafras.

Richard Blair at ASZ.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

We had a hawks and owls and ospreys, but no eagles. There’s a nice picture at the link:

The third and final egg in the bald eagle’s nest at Norfolk Botanical Garden hatched about 7:12 a.m. Wednesday.

The first two eggs hatched Saturday and Sunday.

It doesn’t happen from voters at the ballot box.

It happens before or after, with the ballot box:

In a presentation that could provide disturbing lessons for the United States, where electronic voting is becoming universal, (CIA cybersecurity expert–ed.) Steve Stigall summarized what he described as attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. His remarks have received no news media attention until now.

Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that Congress created in 2002 to modernize U.S. voting, that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results.