Knowledge that Transforms

Reviews the book "Le Prix de Revient: Comptabilité Appliquée &aacte; Industrie René Delaporte."

Reviews the book "Three Years of the Securities Act --Parts I and II," vol. 4.

The object of all business enterprises from earliest times has been the making of profit and the acquisition of more wealth. Budgeting occupies a prominent and permanent place in the field of business administration. Although budgeting, in the modern sense, was a postwar development in business management and had extensive application first in the United States, the beginnings of budgetary procedure of various other countries is also discussed in the article. Some of the European countries have recently been adopting budgetary procedures in their industries. Germany seems to be taking the lead. French business journals have contained reports of successful budgetary developments in the United States and some accounts of experiments carried on in French industries. In Russia the famous five year plan for economic production has centralized business budgeting in the machinery of the national Soviet government, while in Italy the national government also directs and controls to a large degree industrial operations. Belgium and Switzerland are also making some progress in the application of budgetary procedures.

Reviews the book "La Formation et 'Expansion de la Comptabilité à partie double," by Raymond de Roover.

Reviews the book "Aspects of the Organization. Function, and Financing of State Public Utility Commissions," by C.O. Ruggles.

A striking development has taken place in recent years in the growth and expansion of commercial departments in small liberal-arts colleges. As a result of this development many of these colleges have incorporated business courses. It is the purpose of the paper to examine the nature of this development and to indicate the place of accounting courses in the expansion of business curriculum. Accounting in a liberal-arts curriculum has had considerable discussion in recent years by men interested primarily in the teaching of accounting. It will be of interest to notice the relationship between the stated purposes of business departments in liberal-arts college and aims and purposes of the liberal-arts college itself. It is being recognized in a greater degree that courses in accounting and other business subjects meet the generally accepted purposes of a liberal-arts curriculum and in meeting the general requirements of the liberal-arts college by examining offerings of small liberal-arts colleges and noting the relative emphasis placed upon accounting courses in the curriculum.

Reviews the book "The Theory and Practice of Central Banking," by Henry P. Willis.

Reviews the book "Big Business--Its Growth and Its Place,"

Economic transactions find expression in ordinary business activity through the use of money price and it is the aid that accountant has given a businessman in recording economic and financial transactions in the form of price that has made accounting useful. But during periods of monetary inflation, when most prices suddenly spurt upward, prices assume new importance and present new problems. Price is no longer primarily a result of market conditions but it is also influenced by governmental financial policy. It is during these times of stress and strain that some people begin to wonder whether or not cost-price can safely be used to record at all times the value facts about things given and received by a business enterprise. Perhaps a businessman's dilemma can be made clear by following through a chain of events that takes place in a violent inflationary boom. Whereas in normal times an accountants attention is focused on the efficient utilization and exchange of goods, rights and services placed at his disposal.

This article focuses on the economic considerations of obsolescence. One often hears it said that obsolescence is essentially a modern problem, the result of increased rapidity of economic and social change. It is implied that events moved more slowly in the past so that articles remained in use until they were worn out. Brief reflection, however, is enough to show that this view is incorrect. The major changes of history have been accompanied by large-scale obsolescence of fixed capital. Take the case of the fall of the Roman Empire, the barbarians whose power succeeded that of Rome over large parts of the Empire had no use for many of the items of capital equipment which fell into their hands. Villas innumerable passed into decay. It must be realized that a practical difficulty stands in the way of making obsolescence charges during the lifetime of an undertaking whose rates are subject to public control. The development of railroads in new countries brought out this point. Private enterprise has never been backwards in assuming risks, providing only that the opportunity for gain was commensurate with the risk involved.