Month: February 2014

I recently finished reading Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day:  How the Feds Target the Innocent.

Here’s another example of what he was writing about.  Read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:

…every incentive that we put in place as a company was designed to encourage people to achieve their goals. All these incentives had the caveat that the goals must be achieved while obeying the law. Now that may sound simple, but in virtually every meeting every day people discuss their goals and how they will achieve them. They almost never discuss accounting law. In a sales forecast meeting, you will often hear, “What can we do to get this closed by the end of the quarter?” You never hear, “Will the way we made the commitment comply with Statement of Position-97-2 (the critical software accounting rule)?”

Beyond that, U.S. accounting law is extremely difficult to understand and often seems illogical and random. For example, the law in question with respect to stock options, FAS 123, is filled with paragraphs such as this:

“This Statement does not specify the measurement date for share-based payment transactions with nonemployees for which the measure of the cost of goods acquired or services received is based on the fair value of the equity instruments issued. EITF Issue No. 96-18, “Accounting for Equity Instruments That Are Issued to Other Than Employees for Acquiring, or in Conjunction with Selling, Goods or Services”, establishes criteria for determining the measurement date for equity instruments issued in share-based payment transactions with nonemployees.”

And that is the clear part.

Here’s Ayn Rand once again on the topic:

There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law. Create a nation of lawbreakers and then you can cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system! – Atlas Shrugged, 1957

As others have observed, Rand wrote a cautionary tale. It seems more every day that it’s being used instead as an instruction manual.

I’m sure everyone remembers this:

News out of LA yesterday:

Shooting during Dorner stakeout violated policy, panel rules

Eight Los Angeles police officers who opened fire on two women delivering newspapers in a pickup truck during the hunt for Christopher Dorner violated the LAPD’s policy on using deadly force, the department’s oversight body found Tuesday.

In making its ruling, the Police Commission followed the recommendation of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who faulted the officers for jumping to the conclusion that Dorner was in the truck. Beck said the officers compounded their mistake by shooting in one another’s direction with an unrestrained barrage of gunfire.

Reports made public Tuesday offered new details of the hours that led up to the shooting and how it erupted into a wild, one-sided firefight in which the officers fired shotguns and handguns more than 100 times. One woman was shot twice in the back; her daughter received superficial wounds.

—

A panel of high-ranking police officials that reviewed the shooting urged Beck to clear the officers of wrongdoing, according to several sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Violated policy. POLICY. How about LAW? Common sense? Decency?

So, thirty days without donuts, or do they get a six-week paid vacation (suspension with pay)?