On January 31, 2011, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued for public comment a proposed approach for recognizing impairment allowances on financial assets.

U.S. adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), has been sidelined by the financial crisis, but deserves more attention.  Both issues illustrate the perils of political interference in financial reporting and in the process of professional standard setting.

The notion that accounting standards are purely objective matters for "experts" is simply wrong.

If U.S. companies stated their accounts abroadusing International Financial Reporting Standards, they would incur significant additional costs to issue their securities in Europe.

The Committee is concerned about increasing interference with independent accounting standard setting and recommends separating accounting standard setting and financial reporting from measuring regulatory capital for financial institutions.

Empirical evidence suggests that even a worldwide adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) alone would not lead to global convergence of reporting practices.

The fundamental American right to a presumption of innocence has been discarded by the media, and almost anyone can allege an accounting irregularity and drive the market cap of the accused company into single digits.

Our corporate "scandals" show that an understandable global accounting system for a global market is long overdue.