Abstract The article presents information on some problems of labor union auditing. Organized labor has traditionally regarded criticism of its financial machinery as an attempt on the part of employer groups to weaken its influence and bargaining power. The unions believe that much of the criticism has not been of a constructive nature and has emanated from those whose economic interests were, prior to the present war emergency and the resultant cooperation between labor and management, opposed to their own. Along with this has gone a hesitancy to engage independent auditors who, because their work is closely connected with business enterprises, have been associated in the thinking of labor union members with employers who may have done everything in their power to discourage or destroy organization among their employees. Many unions that engage independent public accountants require that audits be made monthly. In some cases the audits are made by a board of trustees selected by the union membership at regular elections or by special auditing committees elected each time an audit is required.

Abstract The article discusses the advisability of discarding a fixed asset which can still be used and which may still be capable of earning profits and substituting for it a newer model. The author further states the fact that depreciation and obsolescence are sometimes treated as separate problems. If it is no longer wise to use an asset because new methods produce greater profits, then that asset has only a scrap value, it may have depreciated in use or it may have been used hardly at all, but it is obsolete, and must be written off. An asset is obsolete if the prime costs of using it are greater than the total costs of equivalent production using a new asset in its place. Businessmen may hesitate before scrapping an asset because it has become obsolete in the sense in which the word is defined above. Conditions may change and, unless the margin of benefit is considerable, it will be advisable to wait until the benefit appears to be permanent. In competitive industries, a failure to scrap old equipment may lead to heavy loss because a lower selling price will soon be fixed, based on the costs of production by the new method.

I. Conditions under which taxation is income creating, 265. — Influence of expenditures, 268. — II. Under-employment equilibrium with consumption 100 per cent of income, 269. — III. Under-employment equilibrium with net investment and the average propensity to consume less than 100 per cent, 275. — IV. Full employment and a sudden closing of investment outlets, 280. — V. Application of the foregoing analysis in a practical program, 285. — Effectiveness of the income tax as an instrument of policy, 286.

Abstract Reviews the book "Square Pegs in Square Holes," by Margaret E. Broadley.

Abstract The article discusses the social significance of accounting and the public-interest aspect of public accounting. The author views the concept of accounting as a factor in social control. Too few men come from college with any appreciation of the relation between the accounting principles and practices which they have studied and the social consequences that may result from their application. Regulatory bodies in recent years have taken it upon themselves to determine accounting principles and practices in many cases in order to promulgate their regulatory objectives without making their social consequences clear. The question can be fairly raised as to whether the profession and the teachers have made the contribution that should be made in relating accounting policies in use to such consequences. Any consideration as to the soundness of a particular accounting policy is sterile which does not embrace the possible social consequences thereof. The theory apparently underlying the typical program in business or accounting reflects a belief that education for living and education for working can be successfully integrated throughout the four years leading to a bachelor's degree, or the five years to a master's degree. This expresses the idea that working is a part of living and living involves working.

Abstract In three recent issues of the periodical "Accounting Reviews" dated October, 1943, January and July, 1944, representative educational programs of accounting majors have been printed for sixty colleges in the U.S. and for two in Canada. It is the purpose of this article to analyse the data thus collected. The first analysis, will deal with the quantitative aspects of the programs. This will classify the courses according to the usual departments of instruction and thus indicate the fields of education which receive particular attention in most programs in the sample. A subsequent analysis will deal with course names in order to derive further indications of the educational pattern of college students who major in accounting. Public accountants and others who give employment to college graduates with a major in accounting may find these representative programs helpful. They are individual programs, each representing the work of an actual student who was graduated from the school named. They can be studied individually as one deals in the office with one man at a time.