Accounting Industry Needs Higher Standards

Shouldn’t we fix our accounting rules and standards so everyone from Wall Street analysts to the guys on the street can have confidence in our public corporations (“Corporate Lawyers Serve the Investors, SEC Chief Insists,” Aug. 13)?

It does no good to force America’s corporate heads to certify the accuracy of their accounting documents if today’s accounting rules allow fuzzy math, confusion and obfuscation to creep into those reports.

It also does no good to say you will arrest a corporate head who cheats if that person’s lawyer can prove in a court of law that the current--albeit confusing--accounting standards were followed. That does not fix the core problem, wastes prosecutor time and only promotes political grandstanding. Bold new leadership in government and the accounting industry is needed. An emphasis on ethics in our business schools wouldn’t hurt either.

Richard Dickinson

Glendale

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Lord help us. The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission says that it is up to corporate lawyers, who are getting big bucks from the corporation’s managers, to fight fraud perpetrated by those same managers. Lord help us ... ‘cause it doesn’t look like anyone else is going to.

John L. Williams

Hermosa Beach