The article presents information on the presentation of long term lease liabilities in the balance sheets. The balance sheet is an important statement in its own right, even granting such inadequacies in satisfying certain purposes as recording different fixed assets at different price level. For one thing it is useful in studying the financial condition of a company. A most important point in a study of short-term condition is a consideration of the current-asset and current-liability sections. In a study of long-term financial condition the entire liability side is important in that it represents claims against the company and indicates the source of the funds with which the assets were obtained. All of the information presented on the income statement and balance sheet could he presented in text form. In recent years a new business procedure has been evolving which requires a reappraisal of today's body of conventions and principles. It is the acquisition of plant and equipment through use of a long-term lease rather than through the more traditional method of outright purchase frequently coupled with a long-term mortgage loan.

The article presents information on the pricing of exports under the foreign assistance act of 1948. The ultimate objective underlying the plans for the re-establishment of economic stability in Europe, South America, and China will be lost if the U.S., in the course of making these great efforts, fails to maintain the essentials of a sound economy for itself. Strained and stressed as the economy already is from the transitions from wartime status to peacetime operation, two major factors now enter the picture, each one of which by itself can have a profound and decisive effect upon the course of economy. People are concerned here with that aspect of the problem of maintaining a sound economy which is affected by pricing policies, and in particular with the effect of certain cost concepts on pricing policies. Lest it be thought that this aspect is anything but a segment of the problem of maintaining a sound economy, it must be said that the answer lies in other directions for many phases of the problem. For example, where the productive capacity not only is insufficient to handle these new burdens but was proved to be insufficient to handle the needs of the last war.

The art of accounting including cost accounting, consists primarily of accounting methods which may be described as procedures or practices. However, a comprehensive statement of cost accounting necessitates that one look behind the accounting methods and see upon what ground the whole system of cost accounting is constructed. Cost accounting concepts, as well as concepts of general accounting, may be divided into two groups: first, those ideas having to do with the nature and purpose to the organization which cost accounting. is to serve; second, those ideas as to the purpose and function of cost accounting in rendering its services to the organization. Cost accounting consists of those phases of accounting in general which have to do with the classification and assignment of costs to centers of operation, to product units, and to portions of the revenue stream. In addition it includes the reporting of all types of cost information. Within its scope are the accounting techniques which seek to determine the over all periodic net income of the business firm as well as the portions of that income derived from divisions, departments, product lines, or other subdivisions of the business enterprise.

Reviews the book "Preparatory Business Mathematics," by Lloyd L. Smail.

Reviews the book "Commercial Law Questions," by Wallace D. Cathcart.

Reviews the book "Essential Business Mathematics," by Llewellyn R. Snyder.

Reviews the book "Manual on Commercial Law," by A. Lincoln Lavine.

Six of the nation's outstanding accounting authorities have been invited to prepare papers expressing the views for and against the proposition that depreciation need not be restricted to the amortization of historical cost. While accountants have long realized that their basic standard of measurement, the dollar, is a varying one, they have, with one conspicuous exception, declined to recognize, as generally accepted accounting procedures, departures from cost because of changes in the purchasing power of money. In the list obstacles to good accounting is the misconception, often entertained, and blindly fostered by many accountants, that an income statement should reflect earning power or be confined to current operating performance. By moving depreciation expense up or down, according to predictions of the moment, a more accurate earning power or operating performance is said to be reflected in the net result. A good deal of mumbo-jumbo necessarily attaches to the process, for to them earning power or operating performance is a nebulous thing, visible only to initiates such as forceful corporate managements and accountants of discernment.