@VeroniqueB99

#FRAPOL #FrenchPol #FraPol

#MarineLePen sentenced to prison term

(2/2)

PS

#MarineGotCaught:
Do you know which other big-time criminal got caught through #accounting?

Hint

@Moosader

I've struggled for about a year with the decision of what to use for accounting when Windows 10 goes out of support this year, as my only windows machine at work is a headless old windows box that I only use for running #QuickBooks.

It seems the entire #accounting industry* has gone to web-based solutions, and I can only conclude that they are all horrible and clunky as frick. And it's not from lack of trying on my part.

I'm also amazed at the number of web forms I encounter in the wild where pressing Enter doesn't do anything, even when the button in question is highlighted. UI designers don't know anything anymore.

The art of UI is really in its "Lord of the Flies" moment right now. :'(

* Which, to be clear, not the industry I'm in, but I'm beholden to the "solutions" they currently offer. Taking a HARD look at #GnuCash, because I'm just not feeling the web-based stuff.

Tesla (TSLA) accounting raises red flags as report shows $1.4 billion missing
https://electrek.co/2025/03/19/tesla-tsla-accounting-raises-red-flags-as-report-shows-1-4-billion-missing/

"Many #Tesla shorts and detractors have questioned Tesla’s #accounting for years...

Today, the #FinancialTimes has released a new report pointing to a $1.4 billion gap in assets...

The report also points to other red flags...

but with #Trump and #Musk kneecapping the #SEC, repercussions are unlikely."

@SharkAttak A chief failure of the profit motive is that it cares not a whit where profit comes from.

If profit derived only from wealth as defined by Adam Smith ("the produce and labour of the nation"), that would be fine.

But profit is in fact an accounting artefact, not an economic one. That bit of equivocation is at the heart of a great deal of the apparent contradictions and fallacies of mainstream economics.

Profit is based on realised costs and revenues, which means that any trick which can be used to lower or offset / externalise costs, and to inflate or capture revenues, is a net gain to the business.

That's why "free market" entrepreneurs are not in fact in favour of free markets where they can secure higher profits by suppressing free markets. Whether that's through dumping toxic waste (physical or informational), fraud, slavery, labour oppression, tax avoidance, quashing or buying competitors, oppressing suppliers, inserting themselves as middlemen in trade (capturing both supplier and consumer surplus), monopolisation, regulatory capture, lobbying, or any of the other abuses.

Markets can be effective, but generally only where there is a balance of power between capital, labour, government, and common weal generally. If you read Smith closely you'll find that he's a champion of small scale commerce, but casts a jaundiced eye on monopolies (he doesn't use that word, but search for "engross" within Wealth and you'll find some mention), and those who can influence the State to their own interests (wool merchants get a call-out).

As best as I've been able to trace, it, the principles of cost accounting in the US were set out by Alexander Hamilton Church (and yes, related to that A.H.), see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_Church.

There's a wonderful inquiry into cost accounting by Leo Tolstoy in, I think in What Is To Be Done, (sometimes "What Then Must We Do") a collection of essays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done%3F_(Tolstoy) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-what-is-to-be-done.

@Gotterdammerung

I'm pretty sure @pluralistic is aware of much of this but AHC may be of interest.

DOGE Is Not Here to Help With Your Taxes

The financial #data of millions of #Americans is at risk as #Musk and his "team" bring their unlawful breaches of privacy to the IRS
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/doge-is-not-here-to-help-with-your

"the #Privacy Act and the #IRS tax privacy laws were enacted in the 1970s...

If a private sector #accounting or #tax preparation firm behaved this way, they would (rightly) get dragged into #court by their customers."

DOGE's disastrous accounting
https://www.muskwatch.com/p/doges-disastrous-accounting

"the #data was littered w/duplicate entries, data errors, & items that demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal contracting process...

an analysis of the data... actual savings that #DOGE has documented is about $2.6 billion... less than 5% of the claimed total of $55 billion.

...What follows is a selection of the most egregious #accounting errors committed by DOGE."