The confrontation between the accounting profession and its critics has two distinct but related rounds: Round One is over accounting principles--the rules specifying acceptable methods of measuring company finances.

FORBES: Why Everybody's Jumping On The Accountants These Days

Because they were born conservative or pessimistic, they chose to become stock analysts (although the accounting profession is always there as a back-up).

FORBES: Why Stock Analysts Are Clueless

The accounting profession's rules clearly failed to deal with earnings manipulation and corporate hanky-panky.

FORBES: Why Everybody's Jumping On The Accountants These Days

The prospect--some would say the certainty--of change, drastic change, is very much in the air right now for the accounting profession.

FORBES: Why Everybody's Jumping On The Accountants These Days

What an activist-minded Treasury chief and the SEC should do is make sure that bank regulators and the accounting profession don't overreact.

FORBES: Fact and Comment