March 2010
Volume 110
Calendar of Events
03/02/2010 –March 10 Meeting
Noon – 1:00 PM BP Energy
Center—Pebble Partnership
03/18/2010—Board Meeting —
Sea Galley Restaurant noon—
1:00
03/25/2010—CPE Seminar —
BP Energy Center 5:30-9 PM
02/27/2010—CPE Seminar —
Wasilla 9-1 PM
31847
My Certified Management Accountant number issued February 24
!
working in the accounting field, and many years studying for my degrees in accounting.
More than that, it represents a lifelong commitment I have made to our awesome profession. th
, 2010.
This represents 2+ years of studying for the certification, 18+ years of experience
As members of the IMA, we need to take advantage of the resources that are afforded us by our membership. We need to take pride in our associations with some of the smartest, most prominent, experienced people in Alaska.
Locally, we have monthly technical luncheon meetings. We have two sessions of monthly CPE Seminars and numerous professional functions throughout the year; we provide yearly college scholarships and mentoring opportunities, each with the sole purpose of benefiting our members.
Nationally, we have the monthly Strategic Finance magazine. (Last month’s was particularly relevant to me.) We have monthly webinars, free of charge to IMA members and NASBA approved for CPE credits for
CPA’s in addition to the applicability to CMAs.
The IMA membership is more than just a professional association. It is our resource, our asset, our ally.
Sincerely, Judy Moose

PAGE 2 MIDNIGHT SUM VOLUME 104
The Monthly CPE Seminar in Anchorage will be at the BP Energy Center on the last Thursday of the month between 5:00 and 8:30 PM. Reserve your seat with a call to Paul Foutz at 727-8680 or via e-mail at fam-foutz@gci.net
if you will be attending.
We will hold the same Seminar in Wasilla will be on March 27th between 9:00 and 1:00 PM. Reserve your seat with a call to Dianne Woodruff at 841-5232 or drop her an e-mail at: dianne32@gci.net
if you will be attending.
This DVD-based seminar series brings timely information to keep you up to date on the latest changes and challenges in accounting today. Discussion with your local peers brings useful information that isn’t available from Seminars held outside of our area.
1. From Rules to Principles:
What You Need To Know
Field of Study: Accounting
What will happen, as we transition to global accounting standards, when two similar companies account for comparable transactions differently? Willkie Farr's Michael Young examines the previously unforeseen consequences for companies, as well as for their directors and officers, of using a simplified and principles-based financial reporting system.
2. The Price You Pay for IT:
From ERP to Cloud Computing
Field of Study: Management Advisory
Services
3. Challenges of Financial Reporting in
Today's Environment
Field of Study: Accounting
The move to cloud computing has at least one thing in common with implementing ERP software: companies have invested a lot of time, and a lot of money, in both IT initiatives. In our next segment, Peter Vogel - a partner at Gardere
Wynne Sewell - counsels financial executives on the role they should play in making these transitions smoother and less costly.
For many companies, 2009 will be remembered as the toughest business environment in recent history. Our cameras were on hand at the FEI's Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference, where a blue-ribbon panel - chaired by Frank Brod , chief accounting officer of Microsoft Corp. - provided insights into the challenges of operating in a climate of near-constant change.
4. 2010: Still Time To Benefit from Expiring Business Tax Breaks
Field of Study: Taxes
Recent legislation extends the availability of several popular tax credits, from net operating losses to R&D, through the end of the year. But, with the mood in Washington shifting from stimulus funding to deficit reduction, Professor Michael Tucker suggests that you take advantage of these expiring provisions in 2010 before they exit the tax code.

VOLUME 104 MIDNIGHT SUM
President: Judy Moose 632-5863
Judy.Moose@providence.org
Dir of Communications
Ginger Shoopman ging_4@yahoo.com
Secretary Jenny Koenig 743-1709 jennyk@thgcpa.com
Treasurer Arthur Solvang boodog@mtaonline.net
440-6113
Assoc. Dir – Historian Ted Lemaire ted-donna@gci.net
Dir Educational Meetings Paul Foutz
727-8680 fam-foutz@gci.net
Program Roster: Judy Moose 632-5863
Judy.Moose@providence.org
Dir of Meetings Marian Dale 351-4081 dalmarian@gmail.com
Dir of Employment - Cheryl Fullerton
646-3313 cfullerton@alaskatia.org
Student Activities:
Cathy Taylor, 787-8956
TaylorC@alyeska-pipeline.com
Yaso Thiru 564-8260 yasot@alaskapacific.edu
Pacific Northwest Council Delegate
Mike McLean ( 650) 796-0481 michaelmclean329@hotmail.com
Newsletter Compiler Arthur Solvang
440-6113 ak_ima@hotmail.com
PAGE 3
Competence, Confidentiality, Integrity and Credibility.
The current worldwide economic meltdown makes these attributes the pillar of those in the accounting profession.
All too often we hear someone, say, Trust me.” However it is the ethical standards of the IMA that require us to act in a manner that instills trust.
I don’t know everything so how can I be competent? Easy, learn to use the telephone and call other
IMA members. Learn to use the computer and look up subjects at locations such as FASB, the IRS or the
Department of labor. Gain an intimate working knowledge with the IMA website and look at some of the topics listed and the resources they provide.
How can I retain confidentiality and still get answers to questions? Were you aware the IMA maintains a hotline just to help with this issue? You can call and ask questions knowing that the information will remain confidential.
Integrity is used so often I wonder if most people even understand its meaning. The quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standard has two parts to it; possessing high standards and adhering to them. We must not only acknowledge conflicts but must make sure we go a bit overboard to make sure others know of those conflicts. When people understand you have a conflict they can understand why you are unable to carry out some activity. You integrity represents the entire profession.
Finally there is Credibility. Our business is based on trust and it is our most valuable asset. Always make sure people can trust your work, even if they don’t like what they read.

PAGE 4 VOLUME 104 MIDNIGHT SUM
DATE
March 10, 2010 the BP Energy Center.
TYPE OF MEETING / SPEAKER / TOPIC
Joint Technical Meeting with the Institute of Internal Auditors at 11:45 am at
April 15, 2010 Jeff Pantages , CFA and Chief Investment Officer of Alaska Permanent Capital Management will be presenting “ Economic, Financial and Regulatory Changes in the aftermath of the
Great Recession of 2008/09 ” at 11:30 am at the BP Energy Center.
May 20, 2010 Bill Popp , President and CFO, Anchorage Economic Development Corporation will be presenting “ Economics in Anchorage ” at 11:30 am at the BP Energy Center. http://anchorage.craigslist.org/clt/1617946188.html (collectibles) http://anchorage.craigslist.org/clt/1617725546.html (collectibles) http://anchorage.craigslist.org/clt/1617713909.html (collectibles) http://anchorage.craigslist.org/clt/1617701653.html (collectibles)
Stare at the following table, which gives population projections for the elderly in the United States, in millions.
Age
Group
2007 2020 2030
65-74 19.3 32.3 38.8
75 + 18.6 22.5 33.3
Source: Census Bureau International Population Data Base .
Over the next twenty years, we are going to double the number of people aged 65-74, who get their health care paid for by Medicare. And, we are going to nearly double the number of people aged 75 and up, where medical expenses get really high. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey , for which the most recent data available are from 2007, shows average spending in the 75+ age group of $10,500 per person.
If you double the number of beneficiaries, you have to cut the amount of money that you spend on each beneficiary. Now the Republicans are wrong to attack cuts in Medicare benefits. But the Democrats are even more wrong to suggest that cuts in Medicare benefits can be used to fund new subsidies. Cuts in benefits are needed to enable Medicare to survive a doubling of the population of beneficiaries.
Moreover, the cuts in Medicare benefits need to be very large. To a first approximation, if you hold the budget constant and double the number of beneficiaries, then you need to cut benefits by 50 percent. The cuts in benefits need to be genuine, not phony. The health care bill contemplates cutting reimbursement rates to doctors and other health care providers. That mechanism has a track record of being phony, with Congress voting to override such cuts.
The most important facts in health care policy are not the number of uninsured, the international comparisons of health care, or the measures of "excess cost growth." The most important facts are the numbers in the table above.
Stare at the Table...

PAGE 5 MIDNIGHT SUM VOLUME 104
Let us discuss the broader subject of what I call “Personal Climate Change”. What is this? Take “personal climate”—the change over a course of years in the temperature of your personal being or immediate surroundings—and then note the dramatic “change” it has undergone over the past several decades.
Since the 1950s, two powerful trends have affected “PCC”: wardrobe and indoor temperatures. First, let us take wardrobe. Since shortly after
World War II—and stemming from it—the ubiquitous fashion, particularly among the influential youth of these decades, has been to wear Tshirts almost all the time. Although originally intended as an undergarment to keep a person warm, the T-shirt became an outer garment to keep sailors and other soldiers in the tropics cool. It has now become for most people a standard item of casual dress, whether during winter or summer. Ironically, the prevalence of T-shirts among the populace serves to heighten—not lower—the perception of unusual warmth when exiting an air-conditioned building.
Which brings me to my second point. I had a visitor from the UK last summer who told me how amazed he was that so many Americans wear T-shirts all the time. To my “So what?”, he replied, “Well, it’s very cool indoors, George.” “Aaah”, I sighed with my new insight. Forget about how hot you get outdoors with so much skin exposed to the sun. Forget about raising your risk of suffering from skin cancer. Think only about how cold you can get at your office building in July, or at a mall, restaurant or movie theater. Witness, then, the birth of the summer cold. Plus, voilà! Man-Made Personal Climate Change or “MPCC”.
Therefore, I further submit that we have developed, over the last half century or so, an unconscious, or involuntary, sensitivity to outdoor temperatures during the warm and hot annual seasons. This unconscious receptivity reinforces a conscious psychic satisfaction derived from believing in man-made global warming. It feels good to believe in something you can change from “bad” to “good”.
Back in the 70s I had many spirited youthful discussions with friends about a new ice age. “What did we have to do with it?” was a common topic. Having already travelled widely by the time I was 16, I was skeptical that humans could change the course of such things as even regional climates, much less the earth’s climate. The obvious exception was a large city. I thought it arrogant and hubristic to fancy that we were so powerful a species as to be able to alter the oceans and atmosphere. It seemed a bit “flat earth” to me as well, in the absence of solid data. In the 70s, our anxieties, if any, concerned ICBMs. Mostly, however, we worried about getting a job.
In any case, the new mini Ice Age that was theorized in the mid-70s never came about, likely due to the same realities that make the planet unresponsive, even immune, to the most sophisticated computer models. Galileo and Newton had no computers, and they made great progress, so why should The University of East Anglia or the UN have made any better progress?
Rather, what has animated the debate is the sense that the world can and should be changed for the better, and science can lead the way.
However, I propose an important new twist: the very public the scientists wish to persuade is unconsciously predisposed to believing them, due to their barely conscious “micro-responses” over a long period of time to real changes in their sensation of the outside temperatures, relative to inside temperatures.
Keep in mind that not everyone leaves Washington, DC in the summertime. Many policy-makers live and work in the inferno that is DC from late April to late September. I believe my theory is hiding in plain sight. It doesn’t explain everything—and I do not dispute climate change. But “MPCC” might add something to the debate about the degree of man-made causes, and the degree also that the public may go to accepting their existence. After all, it feels very hot when you wear a T-shirt all day in an air-conditioned office and then step outside into even the slightest muggy weather. “Something must be wrong” says the unconscious.
Still think I’m kidding? Consider the now common “wind chill” reported endlessly by television and radio weathermen. As a child growing up in the pre-wind chill days, I knew what a windy Arctic blast was. No one had to split the temperatures into two indices. What useless nonsense! However, folks today are as conscious—or perhaps unconscious—of the wind chill as they are of the thermometer reading. The difference is perception, and that is what I try to address in “MPCC”.
When did air conditioning become widespread? After World War II, same as T-shirts. At first it was movie theaters, restaurants and bars, especially in the South and Southwest. Soon, “AC” penetrated everywhere: houses, offices, cars, even gigantic factories that used to have windows to handle the summer heat. All those beautiful old industrial buildings are gone now.
Does “MPCC” have an impact on the perception—versus the reality—of global climate change? Perhaps so. Most people now live in treeless suburbs. These are becoming more prevalent in the southern US and southwestern US—the sunbelt. I have friends in Arizona who live for six months in what the American novelist Henry Miller prophetically called in 1945, “The Air Conditioned Nightmare.” They wake up in 70° air, enter the 70° air of their car, transit to their 70° office and then retrace the journey at 5:00 P.M. If they go out, it isn’t outdoors, but to an air conditioned restaurant or movie theater. Even the MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks play in Chase Field, a fully air-conditioned ballpark bathing over 48,000 people in a gigantic cloud of artificially cooled vapor.
If scientists and serious-minded citizens consider the global warming phenomenon and ask themselves, “Is our environment becoming hotter?”, they might come to a positive conclusion a bit more often if they were raised in a society that has shielded them from normal exposure to summer’s heat.

IMA—Alaska Chapter
Judy Moose, President
Judy.Moose@providence.org
PO Box 92703
Anchorage, AK 99509-2703
On March 10th the Institute of Internal Auditors will Join with the IMA for our monthly meeting at noon.
Lunch is only $15 and a great topic.
We will be honored to have a presentation by the Pebble Partnership to discuss their project. The Pebble
Mine is an advanced mineral exploration project investigating a very large porphyry copper, gold, and molybdenum mineral deposit in
Southwest Alaska, near Lake
Iliamna and Lake Clark.
The proposal to mine the ore deposit, using large-scale operations and infrastructure, is controversial.
Proponents argue that the mine will create jobs, provide tax revenue to the state of Alaska, and reduce
American dependence on foreign sources of raw materials.
Opponents argue that the mine would adversely affect the entire
Bristol Bay watershed; and that the possible consequences, if mining effluents escape planned containments, are simply too great to risk.
As with most controversies it is best to get to understand as much as possible about the project to make an informed decision.
The management team is made up of Alaskans with long service to the State in environment, wildlife resources, and minerals development. They continue to work towards obtaining the necessary permits to proceed.
The BP Energy Center is located at 900 East Benson
Boulevard, just south of the
BP Building. If you are travelling north on the Seward Highway you turn in the first right after 36th and take your first right at the stop sigh into the cul de sac.
Please RSVP to Karen
Smith, smith.karen@nrim.com
, by
Friday, March 5th. You can also phone her at
261-3524.