The second half of the book explores Alexander’s spending. There is even less historical information available on his spending than on his looting.
One part caught my eye.
Alexander built about 13 major cities according to the educated guess in the book. That doesn’t include dozens of small villages or all the sundry fortifications.
One of these cities, Ai Khanoum, had three miles of wall, which is guessed to have taken 3,000 workers six months to build.
How much would that construction cost? I will make a wild guess. …
Barron’s suggests Mansa Musa, the Emperor of Mali in the 1300s, was the richest man who ever lived.
Since I firmly believe that I am richer today than John D. Rockefeller was back in 1916, I would also insist that I am, right now, richer than Mansa Musa was in 1324. But that isn’t the point of the story. I’ll mention travel costs momentarily.
Musa Keita I is referred to as Mansa, or Emperor, Musa. He was born somewhere around 1280 and died somewhere around 1337. He was the ruler of the Mali Empire which stretched across Western Africa.
Consider the economic resources in the area: gold and salt.
A few recent reports: Reason for no criminal prosecution of one too-big-to-fail bank is that it was TBTF, an indictment and a settlement in forex cases, and progress in the money laundering investigations.
Since I use the term a lot, here is a definition of fiasco from Google:
a thing that is a complete failure, especially in a ludicrous or humiliating way. Synonyms: failure, disaster, catastrophe, debacle, shambles, farce, mess, wreck.
Seems to me throwing away $530 million of bank capital because bank staff and leaders wanted to cheat customers meets the definition of fiasco.
7/11 – Francine McKenna at Market Watch – HSBC wasn’t prosecuted because it was ‘too big to fail’: House Committee – A House committee concluded that HSBC wasn’t prosecuted for willful AML violations because it was TBTF. One part of the violations was intentionally leaving out of wire instructions any indication that the funds were related to activity in countries with bans.
Staff recommendations were to pursue a criminal prosecution. Attorney General Eric Holder determined the systemic risk was too high and thus agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement.
Consider this idea: perhaps GAAP-based accounting numbers aren’t giving stock investors all the information they need.
What is wrong with this picture?
In April, Netflix announced their earnings fell short of analysts’ expectations. Usually that would drop the stock price. What happened?
Nexflix stock jumped 18%.
Huh?
What could cause that? The market supposedly has incorporated the consensus into the price. Missing the expectation should drop the price.
Consider this: At the same time, Netflix announced their new-subscribers were 4.9 million instead of the expectation of 4.0M.
That means they will have stronger earnings for the next several quarters than was expected the day before the announcement. Thus, the stock price rose.
Investors looked at the new subscriber tally as a better indicator of future earnings and thus future stock price than this quarter’s GAAP net income. New subscribers is more important than EPS.
If you wonder are wondering why GAAP EPS isn’t the driving force in that story, here is a brain stretcher for you:
You can find the book at Amazon here. It is a bit steep, $32 in hardback and $26 in Kindle format, which is really high for an e-book. I already have a copy on my e-reader. Started reading it yesterday.
The professors suggest that reported earnings under GAAP are losing relevance for investors as we move further and further away from an industrial economy. When know-how, processes, patents, using the internet, and other intangibles are the source of income, GAAP doesn’t report useful information for figuring out future earnings.
By the way, keep in mind that providing historical information to readers of the financial statements to allow them to make estimates of future earnings and cash flows of the company is, like, sorta’, kinda’, the purpose of GAAP financial statements.
The problem with GAAP
Some drawbacks in looking at GAAP numbers, according to the professors:
If your peer review resulted in anything other than a pass report there are a couple of deadlines you need to remember if you are in California.
Keep in mind you are responsible for your compliance with regulations. Here are a few tips to point you in the right direction. These comments discuss the regs in California. If you are in another state, you really ought to check out what your board of accountancy has to say. I’ll guess there is some comparable reporting requirement when a peer review does not turn out well.
Notification requirement for reports less than pass — 45 days
If you received either a pass with deficiency or a fail report, you need to be in touch with the California Board of Accountancy (CBA).
Seriously, if you are providing audit, review, or compilation services to your clients, you really need to be in the peer review program. And you really, really need to be doing fairly good work. I doubt any CPAs in California who desperately need to read this post will be doing so, but it is still worth mentioning.
The California Board of Accountancy is coming down hard on CPAs who have avoided the peer review program. Seriously missing the boat on audit quality is getting hammered as well.
Quarterly newsletter
The Spring/Summer 2016 edition of the quarterly Updatenewsletter from CBA, issue 81, has several reports of firms drawing serious sanctions. There are 21 pages of narrative describing the sanctions through April 24, 2016. Of 28 disciplinary issues, 7 deal with peer review, which are the ones I will highlight.
Actually, these warnings apply to everyone who is looking at flower petals instead of flower roots.
Here are some highlights of the points, along with my comments. (If you aren’t an entrepreneur or partner in a small CPA firm, focus on the numbered points and translate my comments to your situation.)
1 Seeking the approval of others
Hey, you’re running a small firm because you want to. It is astoundingly fun. You don’t need anyone else’s approval. You approve of yourself.
Tetradrachm from Alexander the Great. Image courtesy Adobe Stock.
My discussion continues of how much wealth Alexander the Great looted while on his rampage around the world. These calculations are based on two books I’ve really enjoyed:
Prof Holt provides a couple of ancient estimates of the total haul in Persia. Here is a recap:
?? Babylon
50k talents – Susa
120k – Persepolis
6k – Pasargadae
26k – Ecbatana
That gives a point estimate of 202k talents. Back out some poetic license exaggeration and add an amount at Babylon about equal to Susa (author’s estimate) gives me an estimate of about 225k talents, give or take. That is only the precious metals without art, statuary, spices, clothes, pottery, or gold inlaid stuff.
In addition, Darius fled with maybe 8,000 talents, Alexander paid bonuses of around 12,000 talents to his soldiers, with another 2,000 talents to Thessalain soldiers. There was enough stray coins found a century later to mint 4,000 talents of coins. That is around another 26,000 talents or so of additional bullion. Add in the unquantifiable amount soldiers looted and all the non-bullion treasures means there was an incalculable amount of wealth looted from the Persian empire.
I’ll work with 202K point estimate, plus 50K from Babylon, less 25K for poetic license, plus 26K sundry disposition. That gets to a point estimate of 253K, with my very wild guess of a margin of error of minus 50K to plus 100K. Let’s work with a 250,000 Talent estimate. That means I’ll roughly estimate Alexander looted 250,000 talents of silver-equivalent from Persia.
Total haul during Alexander’s extended raid around the world
The total haul from looting is estimated by the Prof. Holt as 69( X) + 216,820 talents, where X is an unknown amount from one raid or battle. The total is unknown and unknowable.
Shortly after that estimate the author adds in tribute from conquered areas that were not looted in return for payments and loyalty.
Total proceeds from the wars is then estimated in a formula expressed as 81.67( X) +311,761.
Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com before they closed their doors.
The massive volumes of change you see surrounding you everywhere you look isn’t going to stop. In fact the pace of change is going to increase.
Each of us have a choice. Either figure out how to cope with and embrace the change or ignore it.
The cost of ignoring massive change is that you and your organization will get left behind. That doesn’t just mean you will be a laggard as you continue doing next month what you did last year. Instead that means your organization will radically shrink and before you know it, will disappear.
The downsides are serious. There is an upside and it is exciting.
Four articles I’ve seen lately focus the mind. While these articles are written in either the accounting or church context, they also fully apply in the church and accounting context. They also apply to every individual and organization.
This article will be posted across all my blogs because it applies to all of them.
The odds are really high that tax preparation will be completely automated in the next two decades. Estimated odds are almost as high that both accounting and auditing will be fully automated.
Consider my business and my core tasks of auditing charities. There is a real possibility those types of audits could be heavily automated in 10 or 15 or 20 years. I am not old enough to bank on retiring before that massive change starts eating away the entire audit profession.
Automation will take over an increasing number of tasks. The world of tax, accounting, and audit will be affected. Mr. Sheridan explains the shelf life of education and experience we have is shrinking.
As the Maryland Association of CPAs routinely points out our learning needs to be greater than the rate of change; L>C is their formula.
An ongoing challenge for law enforcement in pursuing charges against bankers is actually getting convictions at trial. Even manipulating Libor is a tough sell to juries.
For those who wanted to see bunches of bankers in prison stripes, keep in mind there is that hurdle of persuading a jury a crime was committed. It may be difficult, but is possible to do.
In their research they have only found 2,400 Americans who ran money through companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, none of them high-profile, and apparently none of them from the political world.
Article tells the tale visible from correspondence for a few people who had already built a private fortune and then decided to park money overseas.
The basic asset protection shell structure includes two entities: a for-profit into which money is moved from the US, and a Panamanian based foundation which receives a contribution from the first shell, thus protecting the money from litigation, taxation, or disclosure.
Drawing of Persian daric gold coin. Alexander would have looted tons of these. Image courtesy of Adobe stock.
The number two man in the Persian Empire offered a bribe of 10,000 talents to the king in return for permission to kill off all the Jews living under the authority of the king. Today’s question: what would the amount of that bribe be worth in today’s money?
The Old Testament book of Esther tells the story of Haman plotting to kill all the Jews living in the Persian Empire. Esther then told King Xerxes about the plot. The King executed Haman and allowed the Jews to defend themselves from those planning to exterminate them. The Jews survived. Those who expected to slaughter them did not. That is the short version. For the full details, check out the book of Esther.
Hers is a wonderful story of realizing God put you in a place to do a job that only you can do. So many other delightful and encouraging aspects of the story. If you haven’t looked at it lately, check it out.
There is one particular verse in the story which overlaps my discussion of Alexander the Great looting the Persian Empire. …
My fellow CPAs who are members of the AICPA voted overwhelmingly to approve the operating agreement or joint venture or merger (however you choose to describe the combination of operations) between the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), producing a new Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA).
Drawing of Persian daric gold coin. Alexander would have looted tons of these (literally tons). Image courtesy of Adobe stock.
After developing a few points of reference for comparing ancient finances to now, I can get back to pondering the value of loot Alexander the Great stole while on his military rampage, I mean campaign.
Approximate value of the haul from looting Susa, the capital of Persia
The loot from Susa is described by Prof. Holt, and converted to a current value, as follows:
40,000 Talents of uncoined bullion, or raw silver
10,000 Talents of gold coins, which I will assume is expressed as the equivalent in silver
50,000 Talents – haul at Susa, estimated by Prof. Holt
400 years wages per talent, for a skilled laborer, adjusted for Great Enrichment at a factor of 40; could be as high as 80 or even 100
20,000,000 years wages
200,000 centuries of wages for an average worker
$70,000 – average annual compensation package for a skilled construction worker today, calculated here
$1,400,000,000,000 – really rough approximation of current wages today for skilled construction workers which would be vaguely comparable to loot hauled off from Susa
