Al Rosen, a forensic accountant and principal of Rosen & Associates in Toronto wrote about his opinion on IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) in Canadian Business magazine.

The U.S. might be moving from GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) to IFRS, although there isn’t hasn’t been a final decision or a timeline for doing so. The problems that Rosen cites probably apply equally to the U.S. Under GAAP reporting, the system developed and used in the U.S., changes can be made to the rules based upon business conditions here and abuses of the rules.

If we move to an international standard, we end up losing control and playing by an international standard for which control is far removed from U.S. regulators. Here’s what Rosen had to say (bold added by me):

The scheme: Typical multi-level marketing company, using the guise of “direct sales” to make the business look like a legitimate retail venture. The reality is that it’s nothing more than a recruiting scheme like Usana, Mary Kay, Arbonne, PrePaid Legal, Primerica, Herbalife, United First Financial, and so many other companies that make big promises to members, but provide little actual reward to 99%.

The founder: Dallin Larsen founded MonaVie. He used to work for Usana Health Sciences, and actually helped found Usana. He helped grow the associates to 70,000 and helped make up the compensation plan. Then he ditched out and started his own company

The product: Acai berry juice plus other fruit juices. I like to call this “magic berry juice.” It supposedly cures whatever ails you and there’s never been anything quite like it on the market. If you study multi-level marketing companies, you will see that one very common characteristic is some unique/special product that is hard to find and has never been offered before.

I wrote a couple of posts on some common IRS audit red flags shortly after tax season ended and never finished the list. So here are a few more items that might cause the IRS to want to look at your tax returns a little more closely.

That appears to be what Patrick Byrne is suggesting in this interview. The story keeps changing. At one point, Patrick said he and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) weren’t really the target of the SEC investigation. Rather, the investigation was focused on others (hence the “celebration” of subpoenas). When the SEC issued a no-action letter, suddenly the investigation really was about Overstock and Patrick, and they were vindicated (according to their supporters).

Byrne blathers and I paraphrase….

On August 12, 2005, Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) had a conference call he said was going to give information about the “August 11 lawsuit.”

The transcript is 17 glorious pages of Byrne rambling about his conspiracy theories. No questions. Just Byrne and conspiracy theories. I read it on Thursday. And I didn’t really know what to do with it. Do I try to summarize all the nonsense? Then what?

Fortunately, a poster on a stock message board has saved me the trouble. Here’s what he calls the Reader’s Digest version of the transcript. If you’re normal, you will get less than 1/4 through it and swear that this person is lying. The transcript of this public conference call sponsored by Overstock.com couldn’t possibly have happened this way. Oh yes, it could. Read the transcript for yourself!

A fellow AOL blogger, Victoria Erhart, wrote a fantastic piece on Bloggingstocks,
GAAP vs. IFRS: New accounting rules could mean trouble.She looks at the problems that will surely come up if the U.S. switches to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Currently, U.S. accounting programs teach Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) because that’s what’s used in the U.S. And the CPA exam tests accountants on GAAP, again because that’s what’s used.

But if American companies switch to IFRS, there’s going to be a problem. Who will teach IFRS? The move to IFRS makes sense simply because of the global nature of the modern business world. Victoria says:

Obama on the 57 states he’s been to, with one left to go…

It you’re considering getting involved in ShopToEarn, don’t miss this post with lots of important information!

A fellow financial blogger recently went down the road of examining a new multi-level marketing company called Shop to Earn. He was considering signing up, and did a review based on the information he had up to that point. He asked readers to chime in with their views. Here’s some of what he had to say in that first post:

Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) has been on a crusade against naked short selling for a couple of years (or more?). It is currently his position that naked short selling is bad. He confirms his belief in this statement on Overstock.com:

Patrick Byrne is waging a fight with Wall Street over naked short selling. He believes that, through the practice of naked shorting, Wall Street is cheating Main Street America and destroying small companies for a profit. Byrne feels that the SEC is failing to protect retail investors and small companies because it has been captured by Wall Street, and that the New York financial press is similarly co-opted. Byrne believes that the SEC’s efforts to eliminate this abusive practice are falling short, not simply for Overstock (which has itself been on the Regulation SHO Threshold list for over two years), but in a way that creates the possibility of systemic risk for our financial world.

So naked short selling is an “abusive practice”? (Notice that there are no qualifiers in the statement above. It simply says that naked shorting is bad.)

I occasionally take a peek at stock message boards like the Investor Village Overstock.com board when I need a bit of entertainment. It’s especially interesting when the poster “Hannibal” makes statements about the financials and operations of Overstock.com and makes no disclosure that he is, in fact, Patrick Byrne the CEO of Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK).

Patrick and his little friends have a history of using dirty tricks to try to gather information on the people who dare to say anything negative about Overstock. Paid cyberstalker Judd Bagley is known for secretly embedding code into messages he posts on message boards, with the intent of harvesting information about the IP addresses of those who read and respond to his messages.