Verifiability
is an ingredient of reliability.
Verifiability
helps
assure
users
that information faithfully
represents
the economic
phenomena
it purports to represent.
Verifiability means that different
knowledgeable and independent observers could reach consensus, although
not necessarily complete agreement, that a particular depiction is a
faithful representation.
Quantified information
need not be a single
point estimate
to be verifiable.
A range of possible
amounts
and the
related probabilities
also can be verified.
Verification
can be direct
or indirect. Direct verification means
verifying
an amount or other representation
through direct observation;
for example,
by
counting
cash.
Indirect verification means
checking
the
inputs
to
a
model,
formula, or other technique and
recalculating
the
outputs
using
the same
methodology.
An example
is verifying
the carrying
amount of inventory
by checking the inputs (quantities and costs)
and
recalculating
the ending
inventory using the same
cost flow assumption
(
for example, using the first-in, first-out (FIFO) method
) .
It may not be possible
to verify some explanations and
forward-looking
financial
information
until a future period, if at all.
To help users decide
whether
they want
to use
that information,
it
normally would be necessary
to disclose the underlying assumptions,
the
methods of compiling the information,
and other factors and
circumstances that support the information.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Comparison
"Comparability is one of the enhancing qualitative characteristics
that enhance the usefulness of information that is relevant and
faithfully represented. The enhancing qualitative characteristics also
may help determine which of two ways should be used to depict a
phenomenon if both are considered equally relevant and faithfully
represented.
Users' decisions involve choosing between alternatives, for example, selling or holding an investment, or investing in one reporting entity or another. Consequently, information about a reporting entity is more useful if it can be compared with similar information about other entities and with similar information about the same entity for another period or another date.
Comparability is the qualitative characteristic that enables users to identify and understand similarities in, and differences among, items. Unlike the other qualitative characteristics, comparability does not relate to a single item. A comparison requires at least two items.
Consistency, although related to comparability, is not the same. Consistency refers to the use of the same methods for the same items, either from period to period within a reporting entity or in a single period across entities. Comparability is the goal; consistency helps to achieve that goal.
Comparability is not uniformity. For information to be comparable, like things must look alike and different things must look different. Comparability of financial information is not enhanced by making unlike things look alike any more than it is enhanced by making like things look different.
Some degree of comparability is likely to be attained by satisfying the fundamental qualitative characteristics. A faithful representation of a relevant economic phenomenon should naturally possess some degree of comparability with a faithful representation of a similar relevant economic phenomenon by another reporting entity.
Although a single economic phenomenon can be faithfully represented in multiple ways, permitting alternative accounting methods for the same economic phenomenon diminishes comparability."
Users' decisions involve choosing between alternatives, for example, selling or holding an investment, or investing in one reporting entity or another. Consequently, information about a reporting entity is more useful if it can be compared with similar information about other entities and with similar information about the same entity for another period or another date.
Comparability is the qualitative characteristic that enables users to identify and understand similarities in, and differences among, items. Unlike the other qualitative characteristics, comparability does not relate to a single item. A comparison requires at least two items.
Consistency, although related to comparability, is not the same. Consistency refers to the use of the same methods for the same items, either from period to period within a reporting entity or in a single period across entities. Comparability is the goal; consistency helps to achieve that goal.
Comparability is not uniformity. For information to be comparable, like things must look alike and different things must look different. Comparability of financial information is not enhanced by making unlike things look alike any more than it is enhanced by making like things look different.
Some degree of comparability is likely to be attained by satisfying the fundamental qualitative characteristics. A faithful representation of a relevant economic phenomenon should naturally possess some degree of comparability with a faithful representation of a similar relevant economic phenomenon by another reporting entity.
Although a single economic phenomenon can be faithfully represented in multiple ways, permitting alternative accounting methods for the same economic phenomenon diminishes comparability."
Maximize Perfection
"Financial information must faithfully represent the phenomena that it
purports to represent. To be a perfectly faithful representation, a
depiction would have three characteristics:
- Complete
- Neutral
- Free from error
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Thomas Szasz and Brain Eaters
"The struggle for definition is veritably the struggle for life itself. In the typical Western two men fight desperately for the possession of a gun that has been thrown to the ground: whoever reaches the weapon first shoots and lives; his adversary is shot and dies. In ordinary life, the struggle is not for guns but for words; whoever first defines the situation is the victor; his adversary, the victim. For example, in the family, husband and wife, mother and child do not get along; who defines whom as troublesome or mentally sick?...[the one] who first seizes the word imposes reality on the other; [the one] who defines thus dominates and lives; and [the one] who is defined is subjugated and may be killed."
Ernest Becker was a good friend of Szasz. But Szasz was tenured and Becker wasn't. Becker was fired from several universities because of his support of Szasz.
Szasz was influenced by Frigyes Karanthy, a Hungarian who wrote the novel Capillaria, a world of women. Small men discover the world. They are enslaved by the women, who use them for sex and to build large phallus-shaped buildings, which the women tear down the moment they are built. The women eat the oversized brains of the men. (Paraphrased from Wikipedia)
There is thus the strange position of the dead author. He is loved mostly because he is no longer alive, he has sealed and secured his courage: he has gone to the other world, but has left behind his essence and spirit. He has in every sense conquered death. He is a peaceful memorial to a great struggle. We revere, listen to, and study his words, because he is dead. You cannot struggle against a dead man, or can you? Can the dead be resurrected?
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Toltec and How My Brother Shot Me Twice
I.
Looking at Toltec art, you see a cheerful, yet somber, brightness and darkness. It is emblematic of the schizoid attitude.
There is a debate about what anthropologists can offer--that their guesses about how people 'were' in the past can't overcome anachronism. Yet artwork and artifacts really don't need overcoming. The reaction to the artwork of these lost people is all that counts.
What is striking is that what today we call a "severe mental illness" was the very world view of some peoples. It is quite insidious because it is one thing to fight a war with a culture and kill it off, and another to diagnose a culture as "ill." Hence in this perspective, psychology, for some, represents a clinical murder of a way of seeing the world. For those from the dominant culture, of course, psychology is an aspect of the culture, and strengthens the culture and its world view. But cultures have always been at war. Perhaps they were always fleeing and attacking, rarely getting along.
The dominant class has performed admirably: there is only on form of happiness; let the marginalia be called mental illness.
II.
Riding home from a hill workout, I stopped by a truck. $1000. The old man invited me to his porch and I leaned the bike on the wall and we started her up. "Give her a test drive. I've got your bike." It drove fine.
The main issue was passing inspection and we discussed strategies. He invited me in to see his pistols and holsters. One of his Chihuahuas sat on my lap. He has a pistol belt buckle that held a tiny 22 revolver. One of the screws on his laser sight was stripped and was taking a trip to Kyle to have it fixed.
"My wife passed away in June, and I don't need two trucks and a car. I also have an RV, a 16-footer, and I just sold my other RV to my neighbor. I don't need all that."
We walked down the street and he showed his neighbor's driveway and the RV he had just sold. We talked more about guns. "I'm gonna show you what I'm really into." He connected a power chord to a light, and unlocked his workshop. "Each one of these is a dye for a different caliber." There were about 30 dyes. "That's for polishing the brass. I use walnut husk powder and I let the machine work for 2-4 hours depending on the condition of the brass."
There was an electronic scale for the gunpowder, a bench for the dye press, and boxes and boxes of shells ad bullets, and jars upon jars of gunpowder in its various manifestations.
It was beastly hot inside the workshop, which he doesn't use in the summer. "You die in the heat," he said, "plus you can't have on a fan while your working with the gunpowder."
We sat on the porch and the fan was refreshing after the hot workshop. "I've got two bullets in my leg. My brother shot me twice."
"Your brother shot you?"
"By accident, of course. First time he was going under a fence and I had come out first. When he ducked in, he shot me in the calf, right here. But our mother would take away our rifles if she found out, so he took out his pocket knife to fish out the bullet. But that only made it worse so now we were forced to go to the doctor, but mother didn't take away the rifle, as I had suffered enough.
The second time the shotgun was laying across my belly. My brother saw a bird and as he grabbed the shotgun it blew off my coat and shirt and I was certain I was a mess of guts and bound to die. But I peeled away the clothes and nothing, not a shot."
Looking at Toltec art, you see a cheerful, yet somber, brightness and darkness. It is emblematic of the schizoid attitude.
There is a debate about what anthropologists can offer--that their guesses about how people 'were' in the past can't overcome anachronism. Yet artwork and artifacts really don't need overcoming. The reaction to the artwork of these lost people is all that counts.
What is striking is that what today we call a "severe mental illness" was the very world view of some peoples. It is quite insidious because it is one thing to fight a war with a culture and kill it off, and another to diagnose a culture as "ill." Hence in this perspective, psychology, for some, represents a clinical murder of a way of seeing the world. For those from the dominant culture, of course, psychology is an aspect of the culture, and strengthens the culture and its world view. But cultures have always been at war. Perhaps they were always fleeing and attacking, rarely getting along.
The dominant class has performed admirably: there is only on form of happiness; let the marginalia be called mental illness.
II.
Riding home from a hill workout, I stopped by a truck. $1000. The old man invited me to his porch and I leaned the bike on the wall and we started her up. "Give her a test drive. I've got your bike." It drove fine.
The main issue was passing inspection and we discussed strategies. He invited me in to see his pistols and holsters. One of his Chihuahuas sat on my lap. He has a pistol belt buckle that held a tiny 22 revolver. One of the screws on his laser sight was stripped and was taking a trip to Kyle to have it fixed.
"My wife passed away in June, and I don't need two trucks and a car. I also have an RV, a 16-footer, and I just sold my other RV to my neighbor. I don't need all that."
We walked down the street and he showed his neighbor's driveway and the RV he had just sold. We talked more about guns. "I'm gonna show you what I'm really into." He connected a power chord to a light, and unlocked his workshop. "Each one of these is a dye for a different caliber." There were about 30 dyes. "That's for polishing the brass. I use walnut husk powder and I let the machine work for 2-4 hours depending on the condition of the brass."
There was an electronic scale for the gunpowder, a bench for the dye press, and boxes and boxes of shells ad bullets, and jars upon jars of gunpowder in its various manifestations.
It was beastly hot inside the workshop, which he doesn't use in the summer. "You die in the heat," he said, "plus you can't have on a fan while your working with the gunpowder."
We sat on the porch and the fan was refreshing after the hot workshop. "I've got two bullets in my leg. My brother shot me twice."
"Your brother shot you?"
"By accident, of course. First time he was going under a fence and I had come out first. When he ducked in, he shot me in the calf, right here. But our mother would take away our rifles if she found out, so he took out his pocket knife to fish out the bullet. But that only made it worse so now we were forced to go to the doctor, but mother didn't take away the rifle, as I had suffered enough.
The second time the shotgun was laying across my belly. My brother saw a bird and as he grabbed the shotgun it blew off my coat and shirt and I was certain I was a mess of guts and bound to die. But I peeled away the clothes and nothing, not a shot."
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Who were the gods? The Outsiders
Get outside the city, and there are plenty of old timers who kick around the 'crazy' stories.
Back in the day, the gods came down to man. The visit forever distracted and transformed man. They had, thousands of years ago, the technology now being formed. Man has striven to re-create this vision ever sense. The act of creation and the feeling of power drives him.
Whether man is building the things the gods once used or whether man is tying to build the gods or whether man is trying to transform himself into a god--it is a new chase of the hunt, to borrow Moraline's metaphor of the hunter-gatherer.
Hesiod, one of these old timers, knew of the gods. He used to sing of them before he could write. Everyone used to sing of them. They were enormous, immortal, never suffered.
What, now, is the difference between the caribou-spirit-god and the immortal, powerful creature from far away (who was a god when he arrived, and perhaps is the god driving man's current transformation)?
Back in the day, the gods came down to man. The visit forever distracted and transformed man. They had, thousands of years ago, the technology now being formed. Man has striven to re-create this vision ever sense. The act of creation and the feeling of power drives him.
Whether man is building the things the gods once used or whether man is tying to build the gods or whether man is trying to transform himself into a god--it is a new chase of the hunt, to borrow Moraline's metaphor of the hunter-gatherer.
Hesiod, one of these old timers, knew of the gods. He used to sing of them before he could write. Everyone used to sing of them. They were enormous, immortal, never suffered.
What, now, is the difference between the caribou-spirit-god and the immortal, powerful creature from far away (who was a god when he arrived, and perhaps is the god driving man's current transformation)?
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Golden Age of the Present: Morning Sermon
Chrome has recently reminded us that the Golden Age is today, here in
the present. So the question then becomes: how do we make these current
moments the golden age?
From Scott: each part of the earth is unique, and the humans (and animals and volcanoes and plants) are unique to each piece of earth. Human beings are happy when they can live based on how they have learned to adapt to each part of the earth--western men might call this culture, and the way they have adapted, technology.
Expressions of joy, spirit, routine, tradition, perhaps there is artwork, worship, sacrifice. Perhaps this concept of the gods and of myth. The question is--who would want to have an adversarial attitude to the gods? Those who didn't share these feelings, outsiders (an outside tribe). We jump forward too far to say immediately: those who come from outside with a scientific viewpoint to create a system of legibility to form a matrix to utilize these humans as productive factors on a human farm.
For if gods are a source of power for one group, they are a source of confusion for another.
The modern attack on reification and hypostasis falls in line with the same prohibition of the spiritual, prohibition of gods.
Popper's 'solution' is to just ditch any way of thinking that departs from the practical--that is to say, banausic--that in these dense (highly populated) societies, the mystical or the spiritual or the gods are too dangerous, because they rile up man and delude him and lead to bad 'human events.' (A cynic would say Popper believes these beliefs make man less legible and less controllable, but Popper argues the opposite). Assuming Popper's 'account of history' is perfectly correct, his solution gives way for an unchecked life of production. All language, culture, and activity must be based on the activities of modern science and production. Whether this new way of being is a liberation or a new enslavement is perhaps the matter of debate at the moment as humans forge their way to a new golden age or iron age.
Now man worships what he makes. What he makes requires the transformation of the earth. The void that has been created by the prohibition of gods and finally the prohibition of reification and hypostasis means that there is no longer any way of being that remains that could enjoy leisure--in theory, that is, if we take Popper's argument to its teleological end. That man still engages in leisure--look no further than the kayaking, swimming, climbing, running, cycling, frisbee, bat watching etc., that blankets this city every day. It isn't that there no longer exists, mathematically, the resources which would allow for 'free time' which would enable 'leisure activities.' What has been wiped out is a way of being capable of enjoying and be able to carry out leisure activities. This is what has accelerated man's use and transformation of the earth. And yet leisure still manifests itself spontaneously and in great protest to the otherwise mechanical 'work day.'
This city represents a strange and friendly tribe on a sunny and beautiful piece of the earth. Indeed the young people who roam the city on bicycles are unburdened by the myths of the past. One day, I cycled 11 miles, encountering 20 percent graded hills, then ran with a small tribe in the hills, then cycld again through the tribal territories without headlamp through the hills in the dark, and on my way encountered several hundred bicycle riders who had begun their weekly night time tribal group ride which had formed spontaneously. Many of the riders attached boom boxes to their bicycles and many had colorful lights on wheels and spokes. Had the gods returned and attached themselves to the bicycles?
On the way to encountering the tribe of Bicycles and Lights, I encountered the tribe of Blue Moon watchers, who gathered on the large bridge to photograph the Blue Moon. I stopped and asked them of the Blue Moon and they shared with me stories of the Blue Moon, which happens only once a year. This tribe, then, has only one ceremony per year. If the ceremony happens on a cloudy day, there is great sadness.
Then there is the famous tribe of Bat-Watchers, who gather each night to watch the bats fly out from under a large bridge. They bring blankets and food and other merriment and gaze at the Bat-Creatures.
Thousands gather each day at the cold spring to cool from the intense heat. This tribe is called People of the Spring. It is the not uncommon for the People of the Spring to become the Bat Watchers or the Night Time Spirit Riders.
Tonight is the tribe of the great Runners of the Oval. The tribe runs in the Circle. Cold Water is worshiped between Circle Runs. Today is the running of the great Mile. Time is given, but time must first be created to be given.
From Scott: each part of the earth is unique, and the humans (and animals and volcanoes and plants) are unique to each piece of earth. Human beings are happy when they can live based on how they have learned to adapt to each part of the earth--western men might call this culture, and the way they have adapted, technology.
Expressions of joy, spirit, routine, tradition, perhaps there is artwork, worship, sacrifice. Perhaps this concept of the gods and of myth. The question is--who would want to have an adversarial attitude to the gods? Those who didn't share these feelings, outsiders (an outside tribe). We jump forward too far to say immediately: those who come from outside with a scientific viewpoint to create a system of legibility to form a matrix to utilize these humans as productive factors on a human farm.
For if gods are a source of power for one group, they are a source of confusion for another.
The modern attack on reification and hypostasis falls in line with the same prohibition of the spiritual, prohibition of gods.
Popper's 'solution' is to just ditch any way of thinking that departs from the practical--that is to say, banausic--that in these dense (highly populated) societies, the mystical or the spiritual or the gods are too dangerous, because they rile up man and delude him and lead to bad 'human events.' (A cynic would say Popper believes these beliefs make man less legible and less controllable, but Popper argues the opposite). Assuming Popper's 'account of history' is perfectly correct, his solution gives way for an unchecked life of production. All language, culture, and activity must be based on the activities of modern science and production. Whether this new way of being is a liberation or a new enslavement is perhaps the matter of debate at the moment as humans forge their way to a new golden age or iron age.
Now man worships what he makes. What he makes requires the transformation of the earth. The void that has been created by the prohibition of gods and finally the prohibition of reification and hypostasis means that there is no longer any way of being that remains that could enjoy leisure--in theory, that is, if we take Popper's argument to its teleological end. That man still engages in leisure--look no further than the kayaking, swimming, climbing, running, cycling, frisbee, bat watching etc., that blankets this city every day. It isn't that there no longer exists, mathematically, the resources which would allow for 'free time' which would enable 'leisure activities.' What has been wiped out is a way of being capable of enjoying and be able to carry out leisure activities. This is what has accelerated man's use and transformation of the earth. And yet leisure still manifests itself spontaneously and in great protest to the otherwise mechanical 'work day.'
This city represents a strange and friendly tribe on a sunny and beautiful piece of the earth. Indeed the young people who roam the city on bicycles are unburdened by the myths of the past. One day, I cycled 11 miles, encountering 20 percent graded hills, then ran with a small tribe in the hills, then cycld again through the tribal territories without headlamp through the hills in the dark, and on my way encountered several hundred bicycle riders who had begun their weekly night time tribal group ride which had formed spontaneously. Many of the riders attached boom boxes to their bicycles and many had colorful lights on wheels and spokes. Had the gods returned and attached themselves to the bicycles?
On the way to encountering the tribe of Bicycles and Lights, I encountered the tribe of Blue Moon watchers, who gathered on the large bridge to photograph the Blue Moon. I stopped and asked them of the Blue Moon and they shared with me stories of the Blue Moon, which happens only once a year. This tribe, then, has only one ceremony per year. If the ceremony happens on a cloudy day, there is great sadness.
Then there is the famous tribe of Bat-Watchers, who gather each night to watch the bats fly out from under a large bridge. They bring blankets and food and other merriment and gaze at the Bat-Creatures.
Thousands gather each day at the cold spring to cool from the intense heat. This tribe is called People of the Spring. It is the not uncommon for the People of the Spring to become the Bat Watchers or the Night Time Spirit Riders.
Tonight is the tribe of the great Runners of the Oval. The tribe runs in the Circle. Cold Water is worshiped between Circle Runs. Today is the running of the great Mile. Time is given, but time must first be created to be given.
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