Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for March 25, 2024

Almost always, auditors cost more than they’re apparently worth. But most companies agree that it’s good to HAVE BEEN audited… Certainly every place I’ve worked that endured an audit felt the pain, but they also learned things that made them better.

I was once told that auditors were the people who went in after the battle was lost to bayonet the wounded.

A friend of mine from college went to work for the IRS as an auditor. He told me that the first piece of advice his boss gave him was “Be good to the friends you have. You aren’t going to be making any new ones.”

This must be an American perception. I work in audit of companies and i never have issues with my clients who need it

Hokay, this boardroom and its fairy tale needs a Shrek intervention.

Mother Goose for the Steward Health Care boardroom.

….and the first little piggy lived in trump tower…

A long time ago I worked for a small retail chain that was in trouble and COULD have sold out to Target saving the jobs of the store staff – but the Big Boss’ Golden Parachute only opened if the company went bankrupt, closed the stores and fired everyone. Guess which one happened?

MAGAT delusion number 151 – the soon to be seven time bankrupt fraud who inherited 400 million from daddy and couldn’t make money in a casino, where the house an always wins, is a successful businessman.

I haven’t heard much about interlocking directorates lately, but I’m sure they’re still around, and still scratching each other’s backs.

More like Brothers Grimm.

It appears private equity firms, the army ants of finance, don’t have to worry about audits. They buy an asset, milk it dry, then dump it on the market to float or sink without regard to the wasteland they leave behind. Doesn’t seem to be any laws that prevent their depredations, the worst being elder care facilities, where deaths, expulsions, and closures have increased.

Lenders, shareholders & annual reports all expect them. And don’t forget there are bad actors even in the auditing business.

Jack and the Bean Counter.

The first little board member had recorded his accounts by writing them on the sand, but the tide came in and erased them. The big bad auditor gobbled him up without further ado.

The second little board member had marked his accounts out on the forest floor using twigs, but the big bad auditor scattered them to the winds, and then swallowed him whole.

The third little board member had carved her accounts in stone, which made impossible for the big bad auditor to lug them back to his office. So he huffed and he puffed in an attempt to blow them there. This caused him to drop dead of a heart attack, after which a wolf passed by and gobbled him up.

The third little board member entered into a civil partnership with her secretary. They both lived happily ever after and had lots of little board members. Nobody got bored.

The first thing I learned in business school back in the 60’s is that companies keep 3 sets of books. So pick your poison.. Even funnier is when analysts starting evaluating companies by ignoring EBIDTA….

Adjudicators gonna adjudicate

i like the guy hiding

I think it’s Wiley being stuck on the classic “if you made money, you had to have stolen it from someone else” anti-capitalism screed he’s been on the whole time I’ve read this strip

…and for the Dumpster, his is becoming a lead balloon.!

And they all had a good laugh. They knew nothing would ever touch their golden parachutes.

There are several different kinds of audit. The one referred to here is the one most commonly understood, a financial audit. There are also performance audits and management audits. The latter two don’t produce financial penalties, they produce suggestions for how individuals and the organization as a whole, respectively, can improve.

I personally am a huge fan of the “Deming Method”, used by management consultant W. Edwards Deming to rebuild Japan after WW2. Its official title is CQI (continuous quality improvement), and it’s dead accurate in saying that the 2 leading sources of how to improve the quality of your product or service are your workers and your customers.

My hospital had leadership over the last several years that gradually wore it into the ground and finally that leadership group and president stepped down. The president got a golden parachute. I wish that could have been blown away! He should have been compensated with a large fine or even prison time.

The 3 Little Pigs was Mother Goose?

GASP!

Look at all the little piggies!