If You're Going To San Francisco...AAA Will Be There

If you're going to San Francisco between July 31 and August 4, you can catch the American Accounting Association's (AAA's) Annual meeting. I attended the Annual Meeting in Chicago in 2007, and I highly recommend it. The AAA is the professional association for academics, but many practitioners (financial executives, auditors, audit committee members, and others) belong to AAA as well. (I am a card-carrying member of AAA.)

Here are just a few highlights of the AAA Annual Meeting, and the CPE sessions that precede it:

• Conference on Teaching and Learning - with two tracks - one for practioners interested in learning about teaching now or in the future, and one for current teachers - I highly, highly recommend this program, which I attended in its earlier form in 2007; and again in NYC last year; various FEI members have attended over the years and found it a valuable and high level intro to what you'll face if you decide to enter teaching as an adjunct, part time, or full time prof; contact Dee Harris at AAA immediately if you are interested in this program at deirdre@aaahq.org or 941-556-4119, since space is limited.
• XBRL Teaching Workshop - preceding CPE Sessions and Annual Meeting - July 29-30.
• Concurrent CPE sessions take place from Friday evening July 30 - Sun. Aug. 1
• The AAA Annual Meeting takes place from Mon. Aug. 2 - Wed. Aug. 4
• FEI leadership and members speaking at the AAA CPE Sessions/Annual Meeting Panels include (a) Marie Hollein, FEI President and CEO, FEI, on Panel 1.7: "Auditors, Management and Boards: What They Need to Deter Fraud," moderated by Cindy Fornelli, Executive Director, Center for Audit Quality, with additional panelists Eric Allegakoen, Vice President and Chief Audit Executive of Adobe Systems Incorporated, Randy Fletchall, Americas Vice Chair, Quality and Risk Management, Ernst & Young; b) Betsy Rafael, (VP Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer at Apple, Inc.), as luncheon speaker Tues. Aug. 3 from 12:00 - 1:45 on: "The Future of Accounting: A Preparer's Perspective of the Uncertain and Challenging Future of Accounting as Convergence, Rregulation, and New Business Models Meet"; (c) Rick Brounstein (EVP and CFO, NewCardio, Inc.) and Bob Laux (Senior Director of Financial Accounting and Reporting, Microsoft Corporation), on Panel 3.2: "User and Preparer Views on the Financial Statement Presentation Project," along with panelists Dane Mott (Senior Equity Analyst, J. P. Morgan) and Sandra Peters (Head, Financial Reporting, CFA Institute). Moderator is former SEC Acting Chief Accounting Scott Taub, now of Financial Reporting Advisors. This panel was organized by 2009-2010 AAA Financial Accounting and Reporting Section (FARS) Chair Teri Yohn (also an FEI member, and a former SEC Academic Fellow). Another panel featuring FEI member and former AAA President Gary Previts is described further below.
• Panel 5.1, Tues. Aug. 3, 2-3:30: The Pathways Commission (Charting a National Higher-Education Strategy for the Next Generation of Accountants)Moderator: Bruce Behn, The University of Tennessee; Panelists: Bill Ezzell, Deloitte LLP, Gary Previts, Case Western Reserve University (also an FEI member), Judy Rayburn, University of Minnesota, and Denny Reigle, American Institute of CPAs. The concept of charting a national higher education strategy was one issue identified in U.S. Treasury Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession's (ACAP's) 2008 report; the subcommitee on education/human resources was led by Gary Previts.
• Panel 7.5: "Operating an Accounting Blog,"Moderated by: Bill McCarthy, Michigan State University, Panelists: Dave Albrecht, The Summa (Concordia College), Joe Hoyle, Teaching Financial Accounting (University of Richmond), Ed Ketz, Accounting Cycle (Penn State), Francine McKenna, re: The Auditors
  Tom Selling, The Accounting Onion.
• Additional speakers at the AAA CPE Sessions and Annual Meeting each year include prominent members of the SEC, PCAOB, FASB and IASB board and staff.

The AAA Annual Meeting is a great opportunity to learn, mix and mingle with academics, practitioners and regulators. Think about it! But hurry and register soon if you haven't already!

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Obama Signs Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act

At a press conference moments ago, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law. See Conference Report version prior to signing of Act; see also FEI summary of highlights of the Act by Cady North, manager of Government Affairs, FEI.

The White House Blog has a post by Jesse Lee linking to White House summaries of the Act and a related 3 minute video, What Wall Street Reform Means To You.

The President's signing of the Act was shown via live-stream video on http://www.whitehouse.gov/ earlier today, and an archived video will be availalble later today. (I assume the written text of his remarks will be posted in the White House Briefing Room later today as well.)

Obama opened his remarks noting that we faced the greatest recession since the Great Depression, and that "Although the economy is growing again, too many people are still feeling the pain of the downturn."

In listening to Obama's remarks earlier today, here are some things I noted as highlights:

While a number of factors led to such a recession, the primary cause was a breakdown in the financial system, a breakdown in responsibility, from the halls ...corners of wall street, to ...Washington, DC ... ...antiquated rules... unscrupulous lenders... firms like AIG placed massive, risky bets with borrowed money. While the rules left abuse unchecked, they also left taxpayers on the hook.

Obama reminded people numerous times during his remarks that, "Ultimately, there's no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street." (I believe he was trying to demonstrate there is mutual reliance or a symbiotic relationship, so to speak, between the two, and the two should not view each other as 'opponents.') For example, Obama said: "The fact is, the financial industry is central to our nation's ability to grow, prosper, compete."

Bill Will Foster, Not Hamper, Innovation; Nothing To Fear From Reform
He added, "There are a lot of banks who understand this, a whole lot of bankers who want to do right.. this bill will help foster, not hamper, innovation, so firms compete based on price and quality, not on tricks, not on traps... provides certainty ... unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking customers, you've got nothing to fear from reform."

Among the things the President listed under the topic of "what Wall Street Reform Means to you," were:

• making credit contracts "fine print" more understandable
• looking out for people: companies will have to seek out customers by better products, not abusive practices
• reform will finally bring transparency
• shareholders will have greater say on pay of exec's, so they can reward success, instead of failure

No More Tax Funded Bailouts
Obama emphasized: "There will be no more tax funded bailouts, period.... If a large financial institution should ever fail, this bill gives us [a way] to wind it down... [no more] too big to fail, so we won't have another AIG."

Regulators' Role
"Regulators will have to be vigilant," noted Obama, adding, "we may need to make adjustments along the way." As noted further above, he also referenced 'antiquated rules' that will have to be addressed.

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