G8 (vervolg): de politisering van verslaggeving
Vorige week berichtte ik over de verpolitisering van governance en verslaggevingstandaarden. Dit onder verwijzing naar het sluiten van de rijen van wereldregeringsfora zoals de G8 en de Europese top tegenover de 'bewezen vijand' fair value accounting.
Dat is niet het einde van het verhaal, want president Bush heeft net een nieuwe top van de G20 aangekondigd om op 15 november 2008 de - bewust krakkemikkig gehouden - mondiale financiële architectuur te bespreken. Dat is net zoiets als Beëlzebub die als Paus verkleed negentien kardinalen uitnodigt om zich te buigen over de merites van de laatste Financiële Zondeval en ‘hoe nu verder'.
De ratio achter de actie van de regeringsleiders is niet zo ‘outländisch' als men zou denken. Al midden jaren negentig, tegen de achtergrond van steeds complexere financiële constructies en de onvermijdelijkheid van fair value accounting, lag zo'n machtsgreep voor de hand. Het heeft alleen nog dertien jaar geduurd voor het zover was.
Voor wie wil weten hoe zo'n vergadering precies gaat, citeer ik hierna even uit eigen werk. In december 1994 bracht ik het denkbeeldige gesprek tussen de G7-regeringsleiders van toen voorbarig in kaart, voor een gehoor van tweehonderd accountancyprofessoren in Edinburgh.
Dat gesprek speelde zich af tegen de achtergrond van een richtingenstrijd tussen enerzijds de 'historische kosten'-adepten en anderzijds de waardeschool-ideologen in financiële rapportering. Dat alles middenin een ernstige accountingcrisis, gevolgd door het politieke recept van het opheffen van alle accounting standard setting bodies, teneinde deze te vervangen door een 'Supreme Council for Supreme Financial Transparency'. De G8 zou zo het laatste woord krijgen over de politieke dimensies van verslaggevingstandaarden en David Tweedie - jawel dezelfde - werd verbannen naar Noord-Korea.
Laten we even luisteren hoe dat in 1994 ging, in mijn achteraf niet zo fantasierijke fantasietje:
"The acting G7 Chairman called for courage, true leiderschap, and a 'return to basics' ...
Clinton stated that as a Democrat he could only go for general purpose financial statements, not specific purpose. Special interest is for the Republicans; what the first Republican President after him would do would be up to him.
A small G7 majority shared his viewpoint. It was small but a majority, if only until the next elections.
Next the fundamental concept and effects of different capital maintenance objectives were discussed. Everyone was in favor of having an objective, but each wanted a different one.
Jeltsin (who attended the meeting as an observer) said he was against historic cost because it had cost the Russian people so dearly. Kohl was against inflation accounting because he was against inflation. On this score Clinton was with the Republicans, in favor of value accounting, as long as Arkansas values were used. Major said he wanted a compromise: he had always been strongly in favor of historic base values- meaning his history and his base values- and could the meeting not agree to that? The meeting agreed with everybody and left it to the Supreme Council to arrive at the proper phrasing.
Subsidiary issues were likewise dealt with. Perhaps as a function of the average age of government leaders, all were fully in favor of fully funded pension accounting. The Lifo/Fifo dilemma was pragmatically resolved by flipping a coin. Mitterand stated under loud applause that 'goodwill' was an unfortunate and ugly Anglicism but a politician's only asset, so it should not be touched. That shook the British proposal on [amortizing] goodwill out of its limbo.
A more difficult discussion emerged on the prospective nature of financial reporting. Some G7 members expressed the fear that the veiled predictions that had become part and parcel of accounting language were in fact an element in a strategic move by the accounting community to assume power via the manipulative effect of self-fulfilling prophecies. Some G7 members argued that financial reporting should be a record of past performance only; "accountants should resume bean-counting and stop fortune-telling". Others countered that the past is the future. A third group countered that the future is the past. G7, with true statesmanship, thereupon issued a joint statement declaring the future the past and the past the future.
The use of the metaphor, in particular gender language (in an ambiance worthy of a second-league rugby club locker room) facilitated the solution of other key items such as the definition of assets, embedded values, back service, and matching; not to mention the realization principle. The gearing adjustment was tackled allegorically and euphorically through the blonde with braces, and her ability to walk and straighten teeth at the same time.
Most of the non-native English speakers in G7, as well as their certified translators, were lost on the difference between extra-ordinary and non-recurring items- all being men of standing whose extra-ordinary affairs always recurred.
The G7 concluded in unison - tears in eyes and eyes in tears - that it had never realized how rich and reinvigorating accounting could be. The Supreme Council of Supreme Financial Reporting put all the right words to the G7 conclusions in a Turbo Accounting Manifesto - no ambiguous and indecisive trial balloons or exposure drafts - and called it a day."
Vol verwachting klopt ons hart over het Sinterklaascadeau 2008 dat we van de komende G20-vergadering kunnen verwachten. Als ze ons maar niet weer de Zwarte Piet toespelen.