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Anyone who has studied economics knows about economic cycles. Right now things are clearly rather absolutely horrible - it seems like everyone, including fellow blogger Joe is reporting layoffs . Francine touches on the subject while going into huge depth on how a CFO should handle their Big 4 service provider. It's easy to be stuck in the death spiral of pessimism at times like this. Even though, as an Economics Major, you know that things will at some point things always improve. But when? When prices fall low enough, perhaps. For now, less driving, more walking. As everyone cuts back to save money, that's causing everyone else to cut back even more. It's bizarre, but at some point it should stop. Some people out there who saved up money will swoop in and start buying things when their prices have fallen low enough. How low? Who knows. That's the giant question mark billions would love to have answered. Looking at how things are progressing, yes, people who didn't...
Are the Elgin Marbles going back to Greece anytime soon? An opinion reversal? I already wondered about this earlier - and my view hasn't changed. It's just not likely , especially if you read something like this . DBRS did the math as well - and although they point out the scenario is unlikely - the math is what it is: DBRS ran the number on this kind of doomsday forecast in October, and said the value of the assets didn't meet the debt. DBRS managing director Paul Holman wrote: "This base case default scenario results in a decline in enterprise value of BCE ... to roughly $34.4-billion or 33 per cent lower than the $52-billion enterprise value when the privatization was announced on June 30, 2007." In an interview, Mr. Holman said: "In a default scenario, we show total assets would be less than total liabilities and senior lenders would be covered but the unsecured and subordinate lenders would not be covered. There's a healthy discussion going on in the...
I got one of my friends Water Rant for his birthday - it's a book based on the blog written by The Waiter; he recently wrote about his short field trip to buy coffee and ask questions at a Dunkin' Donuts shop, where he learns that monthly tipping has fallen from $500 to $350 for the two young men running the shop . That's a 30% drop - though he adds that the employees report that people aren't spending less on food, just on the tip side of things. Of course, you can't extrapolate a donut shop - a single data collection point - to cover an entire 300 million person nation, but it's an interesting insight nonetheless. Conducting research at a fancier place: would it make the economic situation look better, or even worse? I wonder if economists have given much thought to the "food service tipping index" as another measure of consumer confidence? But, given the fixed prices and - let's assume this is true - similar spending rate on donut shop products...
One of my friends just pointed out this article in the Globe, which explains how the buyout of Bell Canada by one of Canada's largest Teachers' Pension funds is on the verge of falling through completely. A teacher's pension plan buying one of Canada's largest corporations? Yes, our teachers have deep pockets saving for their retirements Of course I'm going to illustrate this post an artsy edit of one of my photos of the BCE Place atrium. I found it interesting to see this paragraph in the article: The helpful little solvency clause, however, became the deal's Achilles heel in recent weeks as financial market carnage sharply lowered solvency thresholds, leaving the company vulnerable to KPMG's stunning decision . I suppose "decision" is one way of describing an auditor's conclusion - unlike the journalist, auditors themselves tend not to think of their conclusions as "decisions" though - that smacks of a subjective call similar to that...
Flying to Washington on three private jets to ask for billions of dollars ? Clever. I feel bad for the workers in the auto industry, but if I was working in that field, I would be planning an exit strategy around now, unless I was in a position to improve things. Especially because the heads of the companies aren't exactly inspiring confidence right now. From the Dana Milbank article: But the executives were not helping their own case. When Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) tried to find out when GM would run out of cash, Wagoner hemmed and hawed until the lawmaker protested that "I don't quite understand what the hell you just told me." When Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) asked about GM's outlook for the quarter, Wagoner informed him that "we don't provide financial guidance in earnings." So it was hard to feel sorry for the executives when Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), late in the hearing, reminded them again that "the symbolism of the private jet is difficult...
Every once in a while I drift back to discussing the topic of accounting, usually because I've encountered something relevant to discuss - and because I think I can find a way to explain it to a normal person without making them lapse into a coma. To someone not working a desk job which involves running audits or dealing with a company's finance department SOX is just another code-word, like " War on Terror " or " lolcats " - either you know what it is, or it's a just a vague term in need of explanation if you're to really understand it. It's a set of rules for how financial reporting and risks are to be managed and documented, and introduced after the Enron debacle, the effect of SOX is to impose discipline and standardized processes for large companies to follow. The idea being that investors are better served if how a company reports the financial informatin used to prepare its financial statements if this is a consistent and reliable process...
And to think I voted for you. New taxes tend to not bother me - until I'm smacked in the face with them when they surprise me on their "payment due" date. And of course, to achieve maximum "kick you while you're down" effect, tack them on with other fees I had to pay. For absolute bother, ensure that those taxes also achieve nothing! While renewing my car's registration I saw signs warning residents of Toronto that under the new and improved City of Toronto Act the city has new abilities with which to completely mess with our wallets. I'd like to report a robbery "Messing with us" includes jacking up taxes to support the heavily unionized labour force that cleans our parks, fights our fires, and polices the rabble. Now general taxes for housing I've long accepted, as have most people. You own property in a city, you support the services you get. You use specialized services, you pay additional fees. Fine, whatever. If I paid more for driving...
A thought occured to me . Even though I'm Canadian, pretend you and I are both Americans for a moment. The nationality doesn't matter, just run with it. Let's assume that you have your own little business and you're buying some kind of tool, and you have perfect knowledge about the quality of two competing products. You're going to use this tool for five years before you plan to stop using it. Let's assume you were presented with two options. Also assume there are no other hidden costs (i.e. no extra pollution caused from shipping the tool because of carbon offsets or whatever) and money is no object - you have at least $60 burning a hole in your pocket, ready to spend. Option one is buying a $40 tool made by Americans from all American raw materials which you knew would work at 100% efficiency for one year, then break and be useless and impossible to repair. Option two is buying a $60 tool made by, let's say the British, from British raw materials, which you...
Have them read this quick thought : "If I make a bet on Intrade does it affect the election's outcome? No. Is there a high correlation between Intrade’s predicted outcomes and their actual outcomes? Yes. Why do smart people think commodity futures work any differ ently?"
Just when you thought Air Canada couldn't get any cheaper, or callous: sweet merciful crap. That link takes you to a CNN story this site picked up, explaining that Air Canada's regional operator, Jazz, has decided to save 25 kilograms of weight from each flight by getting rid of the life vests. The rules state that as long as your plane is flying within 50 miles of land, it's okay to do this - you can use the seat cushion as a flotation device instead. So as long as I can swim 50 miles I'll be okay? Oh sweet mother - I think I have to sign up for some advanced swimming lessons before going to my next client, which happens to be on the coast. Let's pray and hope - and assume for argument's sake - that in the unlikely event a plane needs to make an emergency landing it doesn't crash and crumple and otherwise disintegrate catastrophically. If you were to look for a place to land and there were no roads in the area, what would be a better touch-down pad? A bunch...
I just wrote a post inspired by an earlier article by Steve McIntyre-Smith, but that wasn't the only commentary on his writings I decided to prepare. I was also intrigued by his note regarding the fact that only 953 people, out of 2357 nationally, successfully passed the UFE in Ontario last year . He goes on to speculate about the demographic time bomb facing the profession. In the near future, the baby-boomer CAs are going retire. Steve, as are many, is worried that not enough students are joining the profession to fill their spots. He argues that current CAs should do more to "sell" the CA designation. When asked "what do you do?", they need something captivating to share with the listener, instead of just saying, "I'm a CA". Instead, saying something like "I make millionaires" through the work you do is more likely to grab people's attention. When speaking to junior staff, I myself have always liked to half-jokingly point out that...
I'm not at all surprised that you'll find my site if you Google big four Canada overtime - I already pointed out that three of the big four are paying out overtime to their non-CA staff and seniors . n.b. provincial laws treat CA, CGA, CMA and CPA and students registered to study for those designations as "professionals" ineligible for overtime pay, regardless of rank. Well now it turns out that all of the big four are doing it - Deloitte & Touche has joined the party . A kind reader who worked for Deloitte pointed this out to me - Deloitte's non-CA staff's overtime hours are about to stop being "unpaid". The news isn't that fresh, but this isn't the sort of thing you see on the front page of the newspaper - unless you Googled "deloitte Canada overtime" you might not be aware of it. All the facts for Deloitte are available at the website they setup otplan.ca - a URL which redirects straight to a deloitte.com page . The general details...
If you're not familiar with CA firms, you may be a little surprised to know that there's such a thing as "recruiting season." Employers will come around university and college campuses during set times of the year - both in Canada and the US - to interview potential employees en masse . The phenomenon of ‘campus visits’ is especially pronounced in the US where there’s a plethora of colleges to visit - smaller campuses often miss out on visits from the Big Four and students who want to get noticed with an in-person interview end up having to travel to a campus visit taking place at another larger school. A reader asks what to do if you had the misfortune to miss out on recruiting season - or were simply unsuccessful in the hunt for a position . Above: Non-big-four recruiting poster in Buffalo's airport. Photo credit: Krupo (as usual) I'm grouping both scenarios together because the methods of dealing with either scenario are ultimately the same. Figure out what...
One reader asked a clever question to one of my recent posts about the market's job situation: Just out of curiosity, how much lay offs are there in the accounting firms? What is causing all these lay offs? I thought the CA firms had a shortage of workers and they were hiring like crazy? I’m not really in the accounting field, so I guess I’m behind on the new… Layoffs are caused by an excess supply of employees, and an insufficient demand for their work - same as in any company. How many layoffs are there and what's causing them? The short answer to both is, "it depends." If you live in a region where there's lots of work, layoffs aren't happening. If you're in a region where some or all audit firms lost business, you'll be looking at 2 to 20 people in a given city's office. Yes, I can't give you a hard number, just some ballpark estimates, and that's because it's all spread around. So much so that when someone hazards a firm number, hecklers...
Layoff talk is particularly interesting to hear when you're not on the receiving end. Otherwise, it sucks hard. Fortunately I'm sitting contentedly in the latter category, as are pretty much all my friends. The same can't be said for others, though . Playing tennis with some other CAs I found myself in a little "Big 4" mini-conference with reps from three of the firms participating. It's always an eye-opener to hear news from another company's perspective: Player 1 : "Your firm snapped up all the best employees. They asked everyone from their competitor how much they were offering, and immediately gave them a big boost on top of that." Player 2 : "Oh yeah, and your company stole a bunch of people from my group." Player 3 : "What happened?" Player 2 : "We laid off a bunch of people, and your company hired them all." Player 3 thinks - that sounds more like "picking up" rather than stealing. Ah, career moves in...
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