Accounting in Flux

"Many see delay as inevitable, in part due to IFRS's relative youth and lack of robustness compared with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). 'IFRS is not ready and we certainly should not be ready to accept it,' says Charles Niemeier, a member of the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and one of the leading critics of the currently proposed timeline. ... Among those mounting a grassroots movement to slow the rush to IFRS are Analyst's Accounting Observer newsletter editor Jack Ciesielski, former FASB member Ed Trott, and Bowling Green State University professor, David Albrecht (who has compiled the arguments of seven IFRS critics, including Niemeier and himself, on his blog, The Summa). ... Niemeier is also leery of letting the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) be the standards-setter for the world, given its recent capitulation to pressure from the European Union authorities to loosen fair-value accounting for banks. ... Indeed, Bob Traficanti, the head of accounting policy and a deputy controller at Citigroup, who in May publicly objected to the standard's effects on banks during the subprime crisis, fully supported it in November at the SEC's final roundtable on the topic. Traficanti, a former FASB project manager, said both he and Citigroup 'believe 157 should be left intact'," Alix Stuart at CFO, January 2009.

What new information came to Traficanti's attention to change his mind? Or did Citigroup conclude it was politically infeasible to object to FASB 157 when asking the Feds for $306 billion more? See my 17 July and 19 September 2008 posts mentioning Traficanti and attacking IFRS: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2008/07/schwartzman-and-mcteer-on-accounting.html, http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2008/09/danger-cpas-at-work.html.