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View Full Version : Accountant Trickery Can Only Hide So Much Bad Stuff: Fail




michaelwise
07-06-2010, 01:23 AM
We live in accounting fantasy land. The tricks don't make the bad stuff go away. It just hides it.

In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson(D) made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." This is likewise sometimes described by saying that Social Security was placed "on-budget."
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html
http://www.billbuckel.com/truth1.htm

Subtract SS from the budget and you double the percentages we pay for defense and everything else. It's an accounting trick.

Take the way Unemployment is calculated. The calculation for the unemployment rate has been changed numerous times, usually to make it appear as if the rate is lower than before.

In 1988, the BLS redesigned the CPS, and in 1993 the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau redefined numerous geographic areas which BLS incorporated into its new labor data beginning in 1994 Under Clinton(D). BLS began to report labor statistics incorporating its new conceptual, geographic, demographic and methodological initiatives in 1994.

Data, beginning 1994, are not directly comparable with those for 1993 and prior years as a result of the redesign of the Current Population Survey(CPS). In addition, data comparisons are affected by the incorporation of new population controls and other methodological changes.

If the government was still calculating the unemployment rate using the same criteria and methods that had last been used during the Clinton administration, the “official” unemployment rate today would be closer to 21%.

http://www.shadowstats.com/

Don't get me started on the suspension of mark-to-market accounting changes where the banks now get to hide the bad assets off the books.
Huffington Calls Suspension of Mark-to-Market Accounting 'Absolutely Tragic'
http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20090406094808.aspx

And what about the 2/3rds of federal, state, and local accounts hidden off budget from the general fund we are all familiar with? Do a little research into the CAFR system. It will blow your mind.
http://cafr1.com/

I think the accountants have just about run out of tricks they can play on us. We are well beyond accounting fantasy land. We are in heads up our asses territory now.

michaelwise
07-06-2010, 03:21 PM
I call it The Methods of Plunder.