Forty Years of Celebration of Discipline: An Interview with Richard Foster

Wow, Richard, it’s been 40 years since your first book, Celebration of Discipline, was published, and it’s still a best seller (selling over 2 million copies), having been translated into 25 languages! Reflecting on that now, could you say something about your original vision for the book, and how God has blessed its impact over the years

Has the long-run velocity of M2 shifted? Evidence from the P* model

An examination of one of the P-Star model's primary assumptions: the constancy of M2's long-run velocity, or V-Star. Using actual data through the end of 1992, the authors find that simulations of the model under a variety of hypotheses regarding changes in V-Star provide little support for a dramatic shift in that measure.Inflation (Finance) ; Money supply ; Velocity of money

Suppression of displacement in severely slowed saccades

Severely slowed saccades in <I>spinocerebellar ataxia</I> have previously been shown to be at least partially closed-loop in nature: their long duration means that they can be modified in-flight in response to intrasaccadic target movements. In this study, a woman with these pathologically slowed saccades could modify them in-flight in response to target movements, even when saccadic suppression of displacement prevented conscious awareness of those movements. Thus saccadic suppression of displacement is not complete, in that it provides perceptual information that is sub-threshold to consciousness but which can still be effectively utilised by the oculomotor system

Lessons From Krispy Kreme

The recent decline of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. raises a natural question: shouldn’t investors (and auditors) have been more wary of this Wall Street darling? Weren’t there tipoffs that would have allowed investors to avoid another franchisor  “crash and burn” situtation like Boston Chicken or TCBY frozen yogurt?  This paper traces the meteoric rise and fall of Krispy Kreme and discusses a number of advance indicators of future problems: insider share-dumping, conflicts of interest within the Board of Directors and senior management, turnover in the CFO position, the use of synthetic leases, repurchased franchises, disappointing join venture results, and the problems of earnings management in the quarterly reports of a fairly small publicly-owned business

Common Stock Put Options: Gambling Without A Penalty

Companies have recently begun to speculate in their own stock by selling common stock put options. The subsequent exercise of these options often creates a loss of shareholder wealth that is not currently recognized due to antiquated accounting rules. This paper argues that it is clearly time for a change in the accounting treatment of these transactions

The Offshoring Of Accounting And Finance: Where Its Been And Where Its Going

This article surveys the past and future of FAO finance and accounting outsourcing. It tries to identify why the offshoring of finance and accounting work has lagged three or four years behind most other business functions, in spite of its seemingly significant cost advantages. It then outlines some of the major emerging trends in the field, including its extension to mid-size firms, the proliferation of venture-capital financed offshore start-ups, the creation of dedicated environments to address security concerns, its expansion beyond India, the non cost-related advantages of offshoring, and the attempt to put an American face on the entire process

Interest-Driven Oversight and the Failure of Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy.

This dissertation presents an examination of congressional oversight of administrative agencies. In order to exert control and ensure that legislative mandates are faithfully carried out, Congress needs its members to act as overseers of the bureaucracy. I characterize congressional control of agencies as an institutional public good and argue that the chamber faces a collective action problem in providing it. The problem for the chamber is that it relies on the voluntary efforts of individual members to help advance collective goals, creating incentives for those members to shirk their oversight responsibilities. Despite these incentives, existing studies show that the chamber regularly performs oversight, suggesting that concerns about congressional control may be overstated. The explanation for oversight provided in this dissertation suggests that such conclusions would be hasty. I depart from most literature on congressional control by focusing on the choices made by individual members, attempting to more clearly specify the individual-level incentives that lead (or do not lead) to oversight. First, I provide new evidence from individual-level behavior that members regularly make the choice to involve themselves in oversight of agencies. Next, I propose an explanation for oversight. Instead of advancing chamber goals, I argue that members use oversight to advance the policy goals of organized interests, receiving electoral support in exchange. What appears to be active oversight is actually members selectively applying pressure to agencies in an effort to ensure that policy benefits go to key interest groups. The following two chapters take up the task of testing that explanation, looking at how the oversight agenda is set within committees and which members actively choose to engage in oversight. By highlighting a disconnect between the needs of Congress as an institution and the incentives faced by individual members of Congress, this dissertation calls into question the ability of Congress to collectively defend against Executive Branch encroachment.PHDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116670/1/richjand_1.pd

Chemical Vapour Deposition of Amorphous Ru(P) Thin Films from Ru Trialkylphosphite Hydride Complexes

The ruthenium phosphite hydride complexes H2Ru(P(OR)(3))(4) (R = Me (1), Et (2), Pr-i (3)) were used as CVD precursors for the deposition of films of amorphous ruthenium-phosphorus alloys. The as-deposited films were X-ray amorphous and XPS analysis revealed that they were predominantly comprised of Ru and P in zero oxidation states. XPS analysis also showed the presence of small amounts of oxidized ruthenium and phosphorus. The composition of the films was found to depend on ligand chemistry as well as the deposition conditions. The use of H-2 as the carrier gas had the effect of increasing the relative concentrations of P and O for all films. Annealing films to 700 degrees C under vacuum produced films of polycrystalline hcp Ru while a flowing stream of H-2 resulted in polycrystalline hcp RuP.Welch Foundation F-816Petroleum Research FundAmerican Chemical Society 47014-ACSNSF 0741973Chemistr