Big Four accounting firms do dirty work

Belatedly, I just want you to know I thoroughly enjoyed your very well-written article as usual. During late 1967 after serving as an officer in the military on active duty for two years,I was a financial trainee/operational internal auditor on the United Aircraft [Now United Technologies] Corporate Staff. One of my first assignments was to perform an audit on the inventory for what was then the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft [P&WA]Florida Research and Development Center [FRDC] in West Palm Beach, FL. The facility was located on the "Beeline highway" not too far from where the TV show "Gentle Ben" was filmed. But I digress. At the time I was one of the very few non-CPA's on the audit staff. When I was in CT I was taking graduate courses in accounting during the evening at The University of Hartford when I wasn't on the road in various parts of the country doing various UAC internal audits. Accordingly, Don, when it came to accounting at the time I knew just enough to be dangerous! What I discovered and what I found peculiar was that the P&WA FRDC conroller was writing up inventory at the end of the year rather than reporting shrinkage which is usually the case. I asked my boss about it because at the time it just didn't seem plausible to me. In any event, as it turned out I literally stumbled onto an unacceptable accounting procedure whereby the controller was controlling the reporting of P&WA FRDC profits by artificially juggling the inventory. The controller was subsequently replaced because of his accounting pecadilloes. It wasn't my intention to get the controller in hot water, but what I stumbled upon/discovered did. All the very best...
— November 16, 2011 5:09 p.m.

Gannett and McClatchy take on debt

I always feel much better informed after reading Don Bauder's investigative reporting and various weekly commentaries. Both he and one of my friends, Mr. Jerry Mazza, [email protected], Associate Editor of the "Online Journal," who currently resides in NYC, are hands-down two of the most talented and thought-provoking investigative reporters and commentators in the country.
— July 26, 2009 5:16 p.m.

Stop pushing development next to Cleveland National Forest

...We can all sit idly by and allow Mother Nature to wreak its havoc in the future, or we can actually do something demonstrable now to prevent the recurrence of such future firestorm devastation each and every time that we San Diegans suffer from one of these repetitive cataclysmic firestorms! I wholeheartedly concur with Geoff Bouvier that far too many people in the aggregate "live out here," when compared to the total population of San Diego. Proportionally, however, it's actually a rather insignificant percentage. After this past October, fires ravaged San Diego County. As the world watched their TV screens and Internet videos/photos in horrific disbelief, walls of white-hot flames, whipped by the wind, swept their way irreversibly across the landscape consuming everything in its path. What can we do? What should we do? We can make a "null decision"--a positive decision to do nothing, or if we're more responsible we have the capability to deter and greatly reduce the impact of these all too frequent fire storms in the future. How and where do we begin? Before the start of the 2008 re-growth period, we should establish a fixed three to five-mile wide fire break inland, north to south, border to border. This may not be feasible to complete this project before the start of the next fire season because we've already dillydallied for far too long in seriously addressing our ubiquitous firestorm problem. All of the unpopulated areas in this strip would be made sterile [Similar to what the Romans did (salted) to the city of Carthage after Carthage was destroyed] and maintained permanently without vegetation. In addition to ground control operations, crop duster type airplanes would/should blanket the remainder of the terrain. Homeowners on mountain crests should be required to prevent wild growth in perpetuity within a 300 to 500-foot radius around their properties. In addition to the 2.9 million citizens who deserve this protection San Diego also has the largest population of endangered animal species and plant life in the U.S. Preventing these firestorm disasters would be for their survival too! We all know the cycle of nature's fire rampage will roar back again in San Diego County. Yogi Berra previously uttered it much less articulately, ["deja vu all over again]" but much more memorably. We can do nothing and have history keep repeating itself that in my opinion would be totally irresponsible or, respectfully, with stellar leadership and support, by implementing the foregoing plan [or a similar type of viable and cost-effective plan(s)] it will significantly reduce future San Diegan firestorm threats. Time is of the essence! Fred III aka [Grey Hair and Grey Matter]
— July 30, 2008 3:45 p.m.