A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy

Record voter turnout by Ontario Chartered Accountants: by-law on the new CPA rules passes

The results came in wicked-fast: earlier this afternoon the viral video-supported campaign by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario bore fruit. They scored the highest ever turnout, a record of 27.6% of the membership, with 85.4% voting in favour. Here's the press release explaining what the ICAO intends to do with its win. I won't bore you with the details, there's more than enough bureacratic bylaw details and associated nerd rage to go around if you're into that sort of thing, especially the counter-argument. The video itself was a pretty good summary of the proposal, though. The ICAO tried a few things to deliver its message. Aside from a series of webcasts and free breakfasts and lunches, the video was no doubt the biggest hit - there's now been over 11,000 views, up from 3496 when I started tracking its virality. Despite it making ICAO Chair Rod Barr feel deservedly silly - he chose not to play it at the breakfast I attended, despite it being in his...

The only good thing to report is the 376

The month before, the count was 416; in September the total count was only 376, that's an improvement. Accounting firms continue with dismissals as they welcome new hires and prepare for another busy season. After condemning the day-of-UFE terminations , a week later I heard that more terminations went through. Exact numbers are, as usual, hard to come by, since each firm is understandably secretive - but the carnage seems to be less severe than last year - if you had a chance to spot the warning signs, and had an escape route, it was a good time to transfer out of regular audit as soon as you could. As anyone would, I feel bad for everyone who was sent home, especially those who haven't completed their CA student programs, since your options are a bit more limited. The big upside is that lots of small and mid-sized firms still need people, even in a lousy economic time. Hopefully they'll all find a good new home. Some people find a job that's less stressful than audit...

30% drop in American consumer confidence? Or are people just cheap?

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...

The Feds would like to ask you a few questions about how they're going to spend your money

Wow, the federal government is doing a budget "consultation" (which is "not a poll", they say). Interesting . Thanks to Nancy Z for the link. It's a 1-7 scale. I assume 1 means top priority. Interestingly the government insists on knowing your income level when you complete the survey. No, "I prefer not to say" option. I guess they think we can trust them - or else we'll lie and make up a fake answer?