We've had the same in the UK. The board of the nationalised RBS threatened to resign if they were able to pay out billions in bonuses. I wonder if we could find a way to call this bluff on an international basis? In essence we'd need a new money system and this might help us work out what the stuff actually is. I get frustrated doing accounting sums these days, but it's been obvious through years of teaching that it's all smoke and mirrors. I actually worked for RBS two years back teaching some complex maths. I dislike maths when I can't see what its empirical connections are, and the whole point of these Gaussian copula thingies is confusion. The idea is that the complex number crunching will throw up (thanks to super-cooled computers) advanced information on the markets that let you shift your position first (ie, unload your shares in the mine before others know the seam is done for). None of the guys I was teaching were any good at the maths itself. We did a quick exercise on the RBS balance sheet and none of them could even explain that to me and why there was more money off balance sheet than in the damn thing.
Very early in teaching accounting you teach people to cheat. What makes profit and loss and cash flow hard for many is they can't get round guessing at the figures to make up a business case. Once you get them cheating and used to double entry, they begin to see that it's all just about making the sums balance. We do very little on whether the amounts claimed are real of not. The machine valued at £100K is taken as worth this, even though two weeks later it actually costs £10K to get it taken away. In principle one should check on the real assets, but where the hell are they in modern accounting? My guess is that some people can now effectively pay themselves what they want and use money as though they were government, because they are responsible for saying whether it is there or not. Real accounting is much like criminal investigation. Over the years we have stopped asking for evidence and taken things on trust. It's like watching a guy wearing a mask and a striped T-shirt building a mansion on the wages you pay him as a gardener. The gambles taken by accountancy firms all relied on other people staying honest. No real need to check the accounts (after all we don't get paid much for that), let's just sign off on them. After all, these guys pay us millions for other advice. The money keeps coming, who will ever know. These people are thieves and it's got so bad they can threaten us because they can collapse the system by being honest. On 9 Dec, 00:16, dj Briscoe <[email protected]> wrote: > I left off a 0 correction$500.000 > > On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 4:15 PM, dj Briscoe > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > This must be big bussiness I suppose American International Group..To get > > these kind of pay and there complaining...This is a Hurbis deed > > > Feinberg may issue a ruling as early as next week allowing some Aig > > execitives > > to earn more than a $500.oo salary cap he announced in October to one of > > the people > > Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Officials have urged him to strike > > a balaance between curbing excessive Pay and retaining key employers..I my > > terms this is a big sums of money ..Pride-pride-pride.. > > > On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 6:37 AM, ornamentalmind <[email protected] > > > wrote: > > >> Five AIG execs say may quit over pay > > >> Wall Street Journal says they're upset that pay czar cut their > >> compensation > > >> Five senior executives at American International Group told the bailed- > >> out insurer last week they may quit if their compensation was cut > >> significantly by the U.S. pay czar, the Wall Street Journal reported. > > >> The five senior AIG executives indicated on December 1, in written > >> notices, that they were prepared to leave by year-end, the paper > >> reported, citing unnamed sources. Two of them changed their minds over > >> the weekend, the paper added. > >> AIG, which was propped up by the government with some $180 billion in > >> taxpayer funds, has been sparring with the Obama administration's pay > >> czar, Kenneth Feinberg, over executive compensation. > > >> Even Chief Executive Robert Benmosche reportedly threatened to quit > >> last month, in part because he did not have discretion over pay > >> packages for top executives. > >> Feinberg has cut average compensation for the 25 best-paid employees > >> at companies that received multiple bailouts and is setting guidelines > >> for pay for the next 75. > > >> For AIG in particular, Feinberg has vowed to limit bonuses at the > >> company's financial products unit, whose massive payouts earlier this > >> year sparked huge outrage. > > >> AIG could not be reached immediately late on Sunday. > > >> Copyright 2009 Reuters. > >>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34309703/ > > >> -- > > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > >> ""Minds Eye"" group. > >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >> [email protected]<minds-eye%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups > >> .com> > >> . > >> For more options, visit this group at > >>http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
