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The problem with today's newest generation of accounting/finance professionals isn't with their upbringing, it's with management's perception of them ("What's Wrong with the Kids?" February). Young professionals today embody the spirit of "only you can control your future"; they see that building connections will ultimately be rewarding later on in their careers. With twice the work, half the workers, and an incredibly broad skill set necessary to meet the challenging demands of the accounting/finance field, it's no wonder that when young professionals feel underappreciated and underpaid they find a new employer who promises increased responsibility and more-reasonable compensation for services rendered.
Warren Rosychuk
Via E-mail
Health Care and the Marketplace
I believe the answer to the question you pose in "Rethinking Health Care" (February) — Can more employee choice actually lower costs? — is a resounding yes. I worked in a drugstore as a boy in 1963. I remember in 1965 when Medicare took over some of the drug payments. Prices tripled. My boss, a pharmacist, was shocked. Nobody seemed to care. Why should they? A third party was footing the bill. Drug companies could charge what they pleased. Direct competition was removed from the equation. There was nothing to induce a superior product or service at better prices.
As I understand it, employee health care was originally initiated to incent highly compensated executives. The company could take a deduction and an executive's lifestyle inched up without it either coming out of his pocket or his being taxed for the perk. The unions got hold of it, and it has been a negotiating chip ever since. The same principle still holds true: with a third party paying for prescriptions and doctor services, market accountability is virtually nonexistent.
If health insurance were to operate in the market — that is, to directly approach users and not their employers, as do car and homeowner's insurance — I believe we would see a miraculous drop in prices and a corresponding increase in services.
Steve Walsh
Managing Member
Home Equity Management LLC
Lockport, New York
A Fool's Errand?
I have no idea what the Financial Accounting Standards Board is thinking ("A New Vision for Accounting," February). It should give more direction on what should be in the lines, not totally change the statements.
What does FASB want as its legacy — that we change the look of the financial statements? The average person cannot read the guidelines now. If analysts want to get funky with their analysis on investing in a company, let the information be in the footnotes. I believe the accounting field will be looked at as a bunch of fools.
Tim Fitzgerald
Via E-mail
Outsourcing Anger
Having been laid off from my technology job in 2001 and having struggled for the past few years to find a replacement job that pays a living wage and makes use of my degrees in biology, physics, and finance, I have become somewhat doubtful that Corporate America has any intention of supporting the American system in which it currently enjoys doing business. "Offshoring Spreads Its Wings" (March) only reinforces my suspicions as to where the U.S. worker fits in. As far as I'm concerned, any company that is fixed on outsourcing every aspect of its business except the executive suite is a drag on this country, not an asset.
As more jobs go overseas, and more people are laid off here at home, I suspect there are going to be a large number of people who are going to set their sights on Washington to get the situation fixed. You may not pay attention to the anger building in the middle class, but I hear it every day. Backlash? You haven't seen anything yet.
Laura Wilkinson
Via E-mail
Successful Recipes
Thanks for the article "Missing Pieces" (March), including all the ingredients of successful and less-successful recipes: capital-allocation principles, individual-compensation principles, regulations, structure and process of risk management, and culture. It is amazing that leading banks such as Citi and UBS are now revealing plans that capital should be allocated to businesses within the bank based on risk-return considerations. Back to the basics of first-semester economics?
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