Other stuff

Tragedy of Fraud series now available in print as well as e-book formats

tragedy-cover   tragedy-cover

 

Both books in my Tragedy of Fraud series are now available in print format from Amazon.

The newest book:

tragedy-cover

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition describes – Scott London’s long fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Click the link for your reading preference:

First book in the series:

tragedy-cover

Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned – Consequences of fraud spread far. There is a long list of well-earned wages from fraud that will be paid in full.

Available in your preferred format:

Jim Ulvog

Don’t compare your messy backstage to someone’s presentable front stage

Things behind the scene are invisible to others. That’s the backstage. The ready-to-go portion shown to the world is the only part others see. That’s the front stage.

The ol’ sage advice is don’t compare your backstage to the front stage you see of others.

This applies in so many areas.

You know how your children behave at home or on a long vacation or how much effort it takes to get homework done. What you see in other families is the on-your-best-behavior public face and the brag-ready list of accomplishments that were oh so easy to achieve.

Compare the backstage of your family to someone else’s front stage as if that was actually a valid comparison and you will be distressed with either your children or your parenting skills. The most likely outcome is wondering why you are a failure as a parent.

Jeff Walker has a great video about that idea. He uses a messily hand-tailored shirt as a great contrast of the slick front stage and the messy, sloppy, slap-dash back stage.

Check this out:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Herruzu4HYY&feature=player_embedded]

 

Literally the difference between (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition available at Amazon

Now available at Amazon:

tragedy-cover

 

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition: The fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Until April 2013, former KPMG audit partner Scott London was in charge of the audit practice for the southwest region. He was responsible for the audit work of 500 accountants and had the paycheck to go with those duties.

Today he is a prison inmate residing at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California serving a 14 month sentence.

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Jim Ulvog

Arguments in favor of harmful aid

Blogger “J” writing at AidSpeak recently experienced another round of lousy arguments in favor of harmful aid. He developed an inventory of the bad arguments in play.

I’ve mentioned “J” a number of times on my blog. He has helped me stretch my understanding in general and especially on the difference between doing aid well and causing harm & hurt by doing aid poorly. We rarely consider the risk of unintended consequences when helping others. Check out some of my articles:

His detailed explanation of great reasons to do aid that hurts is A Taxonomy of Arguments in Favor of Bad Aid.

What does he include in the population of harmful aid?

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Jim Ulvog

How much wealth was in the Roman treasury in 49 B.C.? How about annual tax revenue under Augustus?

Hadn’t thought about that question too much, but when Jacob Soll mentioned it in his book, The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations, it got me thinking.

He gives the following info:

In his Natural History, Pliny states that in 49 BCE , the year Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the Roman treasury contained 17,410 pounds of gold, 22,070 pounds of silver, and in coin, 6,135,400 sesterces.

Soll, Jacob (2014-04-29). The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations (Kindle Locations 276-277). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

I don’t think in terms of pounds of gold or silver and I don’t know what a sesterce is or what it is worth. But I do know how to search the ‘net.

I share this on my Nonprofit Update here and cross-post it to Attestation Update , my other blog, because I enjoyed it and think it might be some fun trivia for accountants and people working in the faith-based community.

By the way, Prof Soll’s book is superb. Just got started reading it and think I will find lots of little tidbits to share. More on that idea in my next post.

How much is that worth?

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Jim Ulvog

Beware an aggressive scam from callers claiming to be IRS agents demanding immediate payment

Scammers are amazingly creative. One of the new schemes is to spoof a phone number from the DC area as the caller claims to be from the IRS. The caller says you have back taxes due and must be paid right now or else you will be going to jail. This can be settled today for a fraction of the due amount if you just provide a credit card number to pay the smaller amount to take care of this today.

This is just another identity theft scam designed to steal your money.

William P. Barrett tells of a friend who received such a call. Mr. Barrett returned the call on behalf of the friend and tells of the conversation:  IRS scammer makes threatening call to Seattle.

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Jim Ulvog

Before you get upset about who worked on a book you don’t like, check the family tree of the imprint

There is a brouhaha in the Christian community about a book published by one imprint with a focus on one segment of the faith community saying things that will definitely not pass muster with readers of a sibling imprint that has a focus on a different segment of the faith community. Underlying issue is that staff working for one imprint were doing some work on a title published by the other imprint.

Comments made in book from imprint 2 are doctrinally unacceptable to audience of imprint 1. Of course, the same can be said of books from imprint 1 if read by the audience of imprint 2.

I can’t get worked up about that issue.  Imprints are only labels on the book that provide a way to group books appealing to like-minded people.

Before you get upset with this issue, consider some of the family trees outlined by Christianity Today in their article Too Close for Comfort.

I’ll summarize one part of the family trees and then list the imprints, along with their focus. I’m doing this because it is interesting to me as a microscopically small writer and sub-microscopically small publisher.  It may be of interest to several readers of this blog.

A few of the pertinent imprints and their publishers are:

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Jim Ulvog

N.Y. State settlement with veteran’s charity and their fundraiser

The NY Attorney General negotiated a $25M settlement with a charity that raises funds to help veterans and the fundraising organization that runs the direct mail campaign.

The fundraiser, Quadriga Arts, agreed to pay a range of financial penalties:

  • $  9.7M – to NY State for damages caused
  • $13.8M – forgive debt owed to Quadriga by Disabled Veterans National Foundation
  • $  0.8M – reimburse NY State for investigative costs
  • $24.3M – total penalty

A consultant to Quadriga agreed to pay a $300K fine.

How does DVNF owe Quadriga so much money?

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Jim Ulvog

Pastoral repentance and restoration

If you have been around the Christian world a while, you know the reality that pastors can commit serious sin that can require removal from the pastoral office. As an auditor providing service to the religious community, I’ve seen this play out at more than one client.

When should a pastor be removed? How wide should the confession be made known? Is restoration possible? How does church leadership walk through restoration?

Those are all questions to address if you are in leadership when your church is hit with a pastoral failure.

The best article I’ve read in a long time is currently at Christianity Today, written by Pastor Ed Stetzer: When Pastors Fall: Why Full and Public Repentance Matters – – Pastors are held to a higher standard and must repent of sin in accordance with that standard.

I’ll just summarize a few of the highlights. Please check out the full article.

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Jim Ulvog

Jerusalem Daily Reporter, Sunday pre-sunrise edition: “Jesus of Nazareth, Enemy Of The State, Executed For Treason”

Jerry Bowyer has the report from Jerusalem. It is in the very early edition of today’s paper. Apparently that seditious rabble-rouser from Nazareth got his just due Friday past when the Sanhedrin and Roman government both agreed to address treason as treason ought be addressed.

The article’s first paragraph,

Jesus of Nazareth was executed today on the orders of the Roman State. Method of execution: Crucifixion. The charge under Roman law was treason, and under Herodian law blasphemy against the Temple. The evidence against this anarchist was so strong that authorities of both the Roman State and the Kingdom of Herod concurred with the arrest and execution, and he was subjected to trial by both governments. And in a rare uprising of spontaneous collective justice, the mass of people who were gathered for Passover called for his execution as well. The mob affirmed their loyalty to the state, chanting, “We have no king but Caesar.”

For the rest of the story, check out the full news report in Forbes: Jesus of Nazareth, Enemy Of The State, Executed For Treason.

After reading the full article, I’m sure you will agree with me that we shall never hear of his name again.

Hold on…

The paperboy is shouting something about an extra edition….Let me go get a copy of the paper to see what happened since sunrise.

Jim Ulvog

How do you keep one rogue employee from destroying your company? Or at least prevent a FCPA guilty plea and $108M fine?

I often ponder just how do you create a high-enough quality environment with superb-enough controls that you can make sure one out-of-control person can’t take down your whole organization.

I have four examples.

Most of them (but not all) had really good internal controls, great procedures, told their staff constantly what was acceptable, reminded staff of ethical and legal requirements. Some had rigorous internal monitoring procedures.

Yet one out-of-control person took out a bank, severely damaged another bank, and another individual came close to seriously hurting an international accounting firm. A group of people cost one company a guilty plea under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act along with a hundred million dollar fine, deferred prosecution agreement, and tons of negative publicity. Let’s take a look at Barings Bank, KPMG, Société Générale, and HP.

Barings Bank trading losses

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Jim Ulvog

Think carefully before you start a new NPO as your platform to change the world

Catalyst Center for Nonprofit Management provides a challenge for those of you thinking of forming an NPO to provide a structure to carry out your passion:  Should You Start a Nonprofit Organization?

The article surveys the costs and says think carefully before diving in to start a 501c3.

Why?

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Jim Ulvog