Accounting

All the financial reporting in the news these days makes me wish I had gone into show business. However, I chose accounting for my life’s work because it was so logical and made such good sense.

I clearly remember, in 1946, my tough professor at Woodbury College (now University) stressing never to anticipate any income but always to provide for all expense.

Now, accounting gimmicks and legerdemain are used to mask the federal deficit, make junk bonds look good, mislead investors in savings and loans and a myriad of other financial matters. It appears there is as much fiction in the business section of the paper as there is in the entertainment section.

Looking back, I wonder how I might have done writing novels and screenplays. I think I could have been a contender.

CLIFFORD W. SCOTT

Bear Valley Springs