Professor Elam

Student Debt

Weekend March 24 2013

Student debt now rivals sub prime mortgages for the next financial nightmare. Delinquencies are on the rise and worse there are more students with debt who did not finish college. Here is a recent summary. 

 

Becker Review Scholarships

Tuesday March 19 2013

I received this update late toda from SA CPA, Will some of you please apply for these scholarships?

 

And we are also offering two Becker CPA Review Course partial scholarships as well: http://www.sacpasociety.com/inews/cpa-inews/2013/02/26/sacpas-becker-exam-review-scholarship-help-available

Same March 28 deadline; to date, NO ONE has applied for either of these partial scholarships!

HOLT CAT March 28 Noon Small Auditorium

Tuesday March 19 2013

Thursday at Noon March 28 2013 Tim Kuhn, Chief Internal Auditor for Holt CAT will speak to our students and faculty. Here is a brief bio on Tim Kuhn.

 

Tim graduated from Texas A&M (College Station) in 2007 with Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Master’s degree in Management Information Systems (MIS).  He worked at Deloitte & Touche in Washington, D.C., Houston, and Austin for a combined 4½ years where he was part of the Technology side of the Enterprise Risk Services (ERS) practice.  During this time, he was primarily focused on internal control implementations and assessments.  In 2011 he became the Internal Audit Manager of ISS Facility Services where he developed an understanding of the Internal Audit role in privately held companies.  Tim moved on to Holt CAT in July 2012 where he assumed his role as the Internal Audit Manager.  Since being there, he has been working to broaden the scope of the Internal Audit function to address widespread organizational risks.  Tim is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and has recently completed all of the requirements to become a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA).

 

 About ten of our faculty toured HOLT CAT this past year. HOLT CAT is the largets CAT dealer in the US with yards from the Red River to the Rio Grande. It is headquartered in San Antonio on W W While Road near our campus. Click to learn more about HOLT CAT.

 

CMA Presentation Thursday Noon

Tuesday March 19 2013

Jessica Wertz from the local Institute of Management Accountants will present along with the national spokesperson from IMA. This is scheduled for Thursday March 21 2013 in the small auditorium at Brooks. We will discuss the Certified Management Accountant Designation. Ericka Barrientos will also speak on the Gleim material available for the exam. 

 

Jessica Wertz

CMA- Finance & Controlling Lead, SAP Implementation & Business Process Redesign at Yazaki North America

Locall chapter

http://www.ima-sa.org/

 National Chapter 

http://www.imanet.org/ima_home.aspx

LULU Pulls Sheer Pants Citing Exposure via Too Few Suppliers

Tuesday March  19 2013

LULU pulls sheer pants from shelves, stock drops 6%.

I have mentioned this yoga apparel retailer Lululemon many times in class. In a hilarious an dperhaps unintentional play on words LULU admits to be exposed to having too few suppliers. In class I have noted massive insider selling  among corporate insiders. 

My take is that this stock has been way overextended for some time, all it needed was a whiff of bad news to take it down. There are no buyers for the stock left out there. 

SA CPA Accounting Careers Workshop this Friday Night / Scholarship Mar 28

Tuesday March 19 2013

 

Accounting careers the focus at UTSA Workshop

 

Students interested in learning more about careers in accounting are invited to theSpring Accounting Careers Workshop at UTSA's Liu Auditorium on Friday, March 22, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. for a panel discussion with CPAs in business and public accounting.  RSVP here.

 

Here is another link

http://www.sacpasociety.com/docs/default-document-library/2013/03/07/2013SACPAS_Spring_Acct_Careers_Workshop_flyer.pdf?Status=Master

Scholarship deadlines for SA CPA are March 28  Has anyone applied?

Cyprus Attempts to Seize Bank Deposits

Tuesday March 19 2013

Cyprus Seizes Bank Account Deposits

My campaign of urging students to become more aware of current events appears to be paying off. An alert student sent the above article. I also featured a similar article on The Market Perspective this weekend. 

Here is the story. Cyprus banks hold a lot of marginal Greek bonds and bank loans. So the banks are in danger of being under capitalized. To make up for this, the Cyprus politicians got the bright idea of absconding with ten percent of so of the larger deposits. Why you ask. Because many Russians, not citizens of Cyprus have deposits there. But they took about 6% of smaller, read Cyprus citizen deposits. And of course these individuals are not responsible for the problem. Today the Russian Government  is criticizing the move. 

This is how a run on banks begins. People  lose faith and believe they cannot get their money back. Now many banks there are closed as are the ATMS. When they finally re open there may well be a masss demand for return of deposits. In a fractional banking system, it is of course not possible to return all the deposits as they have been loaned out. And that is how politicians thinking short term arrange to turn a short run problem in to  a long run disaster. 

Redemption for Tiger

Monday March 18 2013

Tiger Woods was the subject of at least one essay in my ethics class. The author suggested he was gaining acceptance again. And so today I see that he and Lindsay Vonn the skier are an item. He evenloaned her the jet.

Or as was said back in the day about Jane Fonda and

Ted Turner, they have been seen together on several continents.

 

Where are the Scholarship Applications?

March 12 2013

Back on February 20 2013 I mentioned the San Antonio CPA CE Foundation Scholarships.   

This is the link to the qualifications and application. I am not aware of anyone discussing this with me, has anyone applied?

Here is another scholarship for the Becker CPA review program.

All we know for sure is this.

If you do not apply there is no way you are going to  win the scholarship.

deadline is March 28 2013 at SA CPA Office on 901 NE Loop 410 Suite 420

Bold Spring

Socionomics

Market tops are accompanied by bold colors and expansive displays of wealth. At the same time fractal negative readings are occurring. We have highlighted many of these the last few days and found a few more worth mentioning

In the San Antonio we learn of Bold spring

Courageous color, gutsy prints, fearless fabrics — there's nothing shy about spring fashion.

Consider Ralph Lauren's jumbo ruffles, Rachel Zoe's androgynous leather and Tadashi Shoji's nearly neon lace. And then, there are Marc Jacobs' whopping stripes — loudest in black and white.

Bold modern floral motifs and other unexpected digitally produced prints from photographs of nature and people are also among spring's extraordinary — and wearable — works of art.

 

William Flynn, a Cape Cod Barber, ran $150,000 into $500,000. He has been through two booms andbusts in the thirteen years since. The article details that his barber shop has gone from a hub of investment speculation to Wall Street being a taboo topic. I mention this as the perfect example of someone who failed to realize the change from an 18 year period of expansion, 1982-2000, to a period of stagnation, 2000-present. The best bet is that we now have yet another big fall ahead of us, this would duplicate past such period. 

 

We hope that reading TMP will allow you to avoid the kind of mistakes that still plague Mr. Flynn's barber shop. 

And finally we hope you are getting the idea of expressions of social mood at the top. Faster, bigger, bolder, expansive. Seeking to break records not only on the racetrack but at sea as well, on again offagain Maserati has found a home with Ferrari.Maseratil has sponsored a sailboat which just set a new record on the New York to San Francisco  round the tip of South America at  Patagonia voyage. 

Or as Hal Holbrook remarked to Charlie Sheen in Wall Street, 'enjoy it while it lasts son, cause it never does.'

 

Does a car companhy helping set a sailing record sell more cars, I wonder...