A Legalized Scam?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Fraud Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Most people do not shop around for title insurance when they buy a home. Instead, they usually just go to the title insurance company that the real estate agent recommends.This article highlights the problem with this model. Questions: 1. Using the fraud triangle, discuss what factors are at work in the title insurance industry. 2…. Read more »

Bad may be Good?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

While it wasn’t a particularly good 2014 for big pension fund earnings, those who managed the funds saw incredible pay! According to the New York Times, the top 25 hedge fund managers reaped $11.62 billion in compensation in 2014. Yes, that’s billions with a “B”! Questions: 1. The 2014 compensation of the top 25 hedge… Read more »

The Hidden Costs of Beautiful Nails

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Fraud Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Manicures were once for special occasions only. Now they have become a staple for women across the economic spectrum. With more than 17,000 nail salons in the United States, there are about 2,000 nail salons in New York City alone. This New York Times research article looks at the dirty little secret of exploitation of… Read more »

Schedules: The Next Labor Fight

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

While the minimum wage issue has come to the top of political agendas over the past few years, it appears that the new frontier in labor reform will be schedules and pushing back against the corporate trend to time shifts when labor is needed. Questions: 1. What are some of the requirements that proponents hope… Read more »

Like-Kind Exchange Being Challenged in the Art World

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Uncategorized.

According to Josh Baer, “You can defer millions of dollars of taxes,” with the like kind exchange for high-end art.Experts say the use of this tax break has expanded in response to surging prices for art and the rising number of savvy investors, often veterans of the real estate industry or Wall Street, who have… Read more »

We Pay Top Dollar for Musicians!

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

Overbuilding has led to ghost towns in China with towering rows of luxury apartments sitting completely empty, especially in smaller cities in China’s hinterlands. However, the real estate companies who now must sell these empty towns believe that filling their remote buildings with foreign faces, even for a day, suggests that the area is “international.”… Read more »

Don’t speed in Finland!

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

In Finland, speeding infractions fines are calculated according to income. This article notes that in Nordic countries, like Finland, many citizens believe that the rich people should pay more for the same offense if justice is to be served. Questions: 1. According to U.S. Tax laws, are speeding tickets tax deductible? 2. How much over… Read more »

ATM Dogs: The Future or Just Plain Weird?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Soomi Park, a futuristic artist and designer currently exhibiting at Biennale Internationale Design in France, has been intrigued with the issue of privacy, security, and mass-collection of personal data by governments and corporations. In response to the changes, her exhibit, The Republic of Privacy, focuses on an imagined utopia where citizens are guaranteed total privacy…. Read more »

A Solution for Separation Anxiety

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

People feel guilty about leaving their dogs home all day alone. Now there’s a solution – DogTV. Some viewers even report that their dogs were on medication for separation anxiety, but since subscribing to the channel, the dogs no longer need the drugs. Questions: 1. What year was the channel launched and in what country?… Read more »

An Expensive Glitch

Posted by & filed under Accounting Information Systems, Accounting Principles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

On April 24, a computer outage hit 7,000 U.S. Starbuck’s company-owned stores and 1,000 Canadian company-owned Starbuck’s locations. The outage was resolved Friday night after several hours. Questions: 1. Did all locations deal with the problem in the same way? What did they do? 2. Why do you think that the outage did not affect… Read more »