Anxious legislators have proposed a five-bill package, the "Consumer Prescription Protection Act, " that's designed to even the score, as well as to regulate PBMs and force more accounting transparency (detailing, for example, the rebates they receive from pharmas).
Should the federal government, acting on be-half not only of stockholders and creditors but of the general public as well, force its own accounting standards on business?
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Current accounting rules force companies to, as it's called, mark to market.
Speaking on CNN Friday morning, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the president had appointed a separate task force to review the accounting standards issues.
Companies were reporting lower earnings as a result of the new legislation as accounting rules force companies to take a charge in the first quarter.
Next year's introduction of consolidated accounting will force companies to take on to their books subsidiaries in which they have effective control, even though they may have only a minority stake.
Enron was allowed to do this because a task force of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) could not decide how energy contracts should be accounted for, explains Douglas Carmichael, the Wollman distinguished professor of accounting at Baruch College.
Despite recent troubles, Netflix is a major force on the Internet, accounting for 32.7% of peak U.S. downstream traffic, according to a new report.
The Plaza Group claims in bankruptcy filings that it was undone by recent accounting rules that force private equity partnerships to write down the value of their investments in accordance with market valuations, as opposed to holding them at cost.
The bank as a whole would be turning a handsome profit were it not weighed down by an ailing investment bank and by nonsensical accounting rules that force banks to take losses on their own debt when their credit ratings improve.
More controversially, the government plans to suspend mark-to-market accounting rules, which force banks to value their holdings at market prices.
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In a statement to FORBES, SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami argued that the task force was no longer needed because accounting expertise exists throughout the agency, and the number and severity of earnings restatements (a flag for possible accounting fraud) has declined dramatically since the mid-2000s.
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Slightly more than half of the work force is in agriculture, but services are the major source of economic growth, accounting for more than half of India's output, with only one-third of its labor force.
The threat of litigation or prosecution will likely force many more companies to launch internal audits of options accounting.
Although the Court did not force the SEC or Congress to start over with the accounting regulator, the appointment of three new Board members in January, including a new Chairman, gave the PCAOB a chance to renew its sense of purpose.
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Women have long been accumulating economic heft, accounting for 47% of the nation's overall labor force, up from about a third in 1960.
Accounting standard-setters have been arm-twisted into relaxing rules that force banks to mark certain assets to market, but in the long run that may hurt confidence in the health of bank balance-sheets, not help it.
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