If some posters have hard evidence to support their contentions that Amtrak is cooking the books, show us. And not some opinion piece by an RPA columnist.
There is a sport metaphor - ‘You are never as good as you look when you win and you are never as bad as you look when you lose’.
Anyone that publishes financial numbers is telling a ‘story’. Good or bad, they are telling a story. Depending upon the ‘audience’ the numbers are prepared for, things will be prepared to influence that audience in the manner that those makng the presentation desire. This has been happening since finances have been reported using Arabic Numerals and mathmatics.
I am not a forencic accountant - I am just a all around skeptic.
I might add that the only financial numbers CSX and its predecessors ever published that I believed were the number on pay checks, and I only believed them to the extent that they didn’t bounce (they never did, unlike what happened to Penn Central employees).
It was somewhat obvious to this poster that Ed Ellis was not exactly honest about the financial condition of the Pullman company, just via outside observation based on his interviews with the press that avoided the subject, problems with the cars (specifically the hastily dug inspection pit…which should have been in the plans somewhere), passenger news accounts that rode the cars, reports of malfunctioning toilets, etc. All pointed to a shoe string financial operation to me.
The real surprise to me came when it became clear his entire shortline empire was operating on fuel vapors as well. I didn’t expect that but you could see the Pullman operation was barely holding on from the time it started. The reported defective wheels did it for me as a rail operation to avoid. That is something thats should have been caught before the cars were back on the rails.
So you really do not need to have financial stats or the kind of hard evidence your demanding all the time. Usually the public can tell if a company is financially hurting long before the stockholders are officially told.
Pssst, by the way, Ed Ellis worked for Amtrak prior to attempting these independent business lines on his own.
Business Insider is a glorified blog.
Unfortunately for journalism, Forbes also has a glorified blog that is slightly better than BI’s, and the uninformed also quote that source as being “journalism” like they do Business Insider.
Protip: If the address starts with “forbes.com/sites/personsname” then it’s a blog, not Forbes magazine.
CMStPnP: Yep, Ed Ellis is a crook but not synonymous with Amtrak. He was clearly a crook even though the nostalgia buffs loved him.
BALT: My point remains with nothing presented to contradict it. It’s easy peasy to make wild charges with zero evidence to back it up.
Nobody creates a report wherein they don’t make every effort to ‘accentuate the positive’ (whatever that may be in the context of the report) and ‘hide the negatives’ (whatever they may be in the context of the report).
As we know, companies keep 3 sets of books - One that they use to run the company, one that they use to keep the SEC satisfied and a third that they use to keep the IRS and other tax organizations happy. Within those three ‘narrative bases’ they can spin a multitude of ‘stories’ that they want to present to the public for the specific purposes that the do present ‘stories’ to the public.
The trick to reading these things is understanding what they are trying to minimize and hide
Not completely correct. I can tell you this is true of most companies including the C Corp I ran. One set of books, three different reporting requirements. Each reporting requirement does not require a independent look at the books. The actual reporting requirement is the view of the books presented to each group.
So it is more correct to say three different views of the books versus three different sets of the books. The views are not different from a perspective of committing fraud rather they are different because each agency wants a different window or view. As they are unable or unwilling to agree on a consistent one view suits all approach. Also, the SEC is feared more than the IRS because the SEC’s law enforcement powers are far more extensive.
Maintaining three different sets of books in a dynamic operations environment would be a nightmare for most companies. Except for hotels who believe it or not have three seperate ledgers. One ledger for debits and credits before the guest arrives. One Ledger for debits and credits while the guest is in house and a third Ledger for debits and credits after the guest checks out. Former hotel night auditor here. The three ledger approach was interesting and they definitely needed a computer system to process the three ledgers and balance them, very confusing to do so manually, I can tell you. Hotels are the only time I have seen three different sets of books. All other companies I worked for had one General Ledger.
[quote user=“CMStPnP”]
BaltACD
As we know, companies keep 3 sets of books - One that they use to run the company, one that they use to keep the SEC satisfied and a third that they use to keep the IRS and other tax organizations happy.
Not completely correct. I can tell you this is true of most companies including the C Corp I ran. One set of books, three different reporting requirements. Each reporting requirement does not require a independent look at the books. The actual reporting requirement is the view of the books presented to each group.
So it is more correct to say three different views of the books versus three different sets of the books. The views are not different from a perspective of committing fraud rather they are different because each agency wants a different window or view. As they are unable or unwilling to agree on a consistent one view suits all approach. Also, the SEC is feared more than the IRS because the SEC’s law enforcement powers are far more extensive.
Maintaining three different sets of books in a dynamic operations environment would be a nightmare for most companies. Except for hotels who believe it or not have three seperate ledgers. One ledger for debits and credits before the guest arrives. One Ledger for debits and credits while the guest is in house and a third Ledger for debits and credits after the guest checks out. Former hotel night auditor here. The three ledger approach was interesting and they definitely needed a computer system to process the three ledgers and balance them, very confusing to do so manually, I can tell you. Hotels are the only time I ha