A. Ford Motor Co.
B. International Truck and Engine Corp.
C. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
D. Was already at G.M. back in 2005

The answer is C:  Burlington

Here’s how to find this kind of information using I-Metrix: first go to the Sarch tab, and choose the People link from the left margin menu.

Type in Edward (first name) and Whitacre (last name) and choose Annual Reports – 10-K from the Form Group section.

Next click the name Whitacre on the results page then click the 10-K link for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

Then you will see this.

Mr. Whitacre is the lead director of the company.

Maybe the quitters “just don’t get it,” but according to recent Nielsen Online Research,  60% of new users stop using the application beyond their first month of experimentation. No matter how many new join each month, if the attrition rate stays at 60%, eventually there won’t be enough new accounts to replace those who leave.

A. 2012

B. 2219

C. I thought it already happened.

Although December 21, 2012 (the Winter Solstice) is usually cited as the end of the world on the Mayan calendar, that date is based on a false assumption, according to David Humistson Kelley, who calculates December 21, 2220 as the more accurate date for the apocalypse. That allows adequate time for the stock market’s predicted recovery to happen – before it doesn’t matter anymore.

David Humistson Kelley is well known for his key role in deciphering the Mayan hieroglyphs and for his textbook on the astronomical techniques of ancient civilizations. The Mayan’s predicated end of time has captured a lot of popular imagination, even though it simply marks an end to one of the endless cycles of time in their cosmology, and would likely cause no more problems for them that day than Y2K did on January 1, 2000 for us.

For those interested in staying current with the latest predictions there’s always the Doomsday Clock (where it is five minutes to midnight) and the Rapture Index, which apparently factors economic news into its biblical end time prophesies.

Answer:  B. General Motors, and the CEO  is G. Richard Wagoner, Jr.  His 2006 salary was $2.20 million.

To locate the SEC filings noting the restoration of the salary to the 2006 level, simply search GMs latest 10-K:

Display the 10-K’s sections and go to the Item 11:

Then look under the heading Executive Summary.

Since 2000, 54 failed banks have been placed under FDIC receivership. Half those banks closed between January 20008 and January 2009, and include two of the largest bank failures in history: Washington Mutual (estimated $327.9 billion in assets) and Indy Mac (estimated $32 billion in assets). When the FDIC is appointed as receiver, it sells the closed institution’s assets to pay depositors and its creditors. For details on all 54 banks, and to watch for new institutions under FDIC receivership, see the FDIC’s Failed Bank list.

A. Jail for Life,B. Capital Punishment,C. All Madoff Family Should be Stripped of Every Penny, or D. Water Boarding Every Day?

You can cast your vote on the new Bernie Madoff blog, which promises daily updates about “the misguided efforts to prosecute me, hints about where I’ve parked some cash, and a first hand opinion about the idiot regulators that couldn’t tie a shoelace.”

To date, the winning option is to strip all the Madoff family of every penny, followed by “Jailed for Life”, “Daily Water Boarding,” and then “Capital Punishment” as the least favored punishment.

The blog is titled “I’m Bernard Madoff–I’m Telling All. Right Here. Trust Me.” For those who would rather laugh then scream, we recommend the satirical reviews about Madoff’s favorite restaurants, books, online sites, and movies. Only the ads are real.

Not to worry, responds Ester Hicks, channeling a group of the most positive entities we could find to weigh in on the situation. The economic disaster, they report, is giving birth to new desire, and whatever one focuses on, one creates. Ergo, the crisis will result in a market that is dramatically bigger, better, and stronger than anything the world has ever experienced-and which links all the people of the world more closely together.

How’s that for positive thinking?

Hicks is known as “the secret behind ‘The Secret’”, last year’s wildly successful book and DVD on positive thinking. The advice she has for the business student is captured in video here: just line yourself up vibrationally with the expanded vision of abundance and make it real!

The New York Times article “Love, Jobs & 401(k)s” reports a boom market for psychics, astrologers, palm readers, and others happy to dispense financial advice. There’s a big increase, too, in male clientele looking beyond the S&P 500 and CNBC for answers, including those in finance and real estate, along with lots of job seekers. At a time when Henry Paulson is changing his mind weekly, the decision to seek advice elsewhere carries some logic.  “People will entertain the irrational when what they consider rational collapses,” explains one very busy astrologer.

Correct Answers: Delta Airlines $49, AIG $33, Lehman Brothers $0, Anheuser-Busch $214

If you had purchased $1000 worth of beer a year ago and recycled the aluminum cans, you’d have earned a $214 refund. Based on these answers, the best investment would have been the 401 Keg plan. Always remember to recycle!

The total exit pay package includes cash, pension, benefits, accelerated stock and options and other compensation. Note that when AIG was taken over by the government Willumstad voluntarily forfeited his $22 million exit package and the Congressional rescue plan seeks to limit compensation at participating companies. (We’ll keep you posted.)

CORRECT ANSWERS:

The information used in this quiz is found here. In a previous issue of EDGAReView, our Quick Quiz shows how to use i-Metrix for instant searches and answers about executive perquisites.

(A) Reporting standards that will replace US GAAP

(B) Computer-readable financial data

(C) The system scheduled to replace EDGAR

(D) Principals and standards for uniform accounting

(E) System to prevent money laundering

(F) Reporting frameworks for European credit institutions and investment firms.

ANSWERS:

A.  IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards are standards and interpretations adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The US Financial Accounting Standards Board is committed to converging IFRS and US GAAP and just last month the SEC voted to release a proposed road map for making that happen. Currently more than 100 countries around the world, including all of Europe, currently require or permit IFRS reporting. This IFRS Pocket Guide 2008 by PWC summarizes current IFRS reporting standards.

B.  XBRL Extensible Business Reporting Language Reporting is basically a long list of accounting terms and associated computer code that are used to “tag” each element in a financial report. Sometimes called “interactive data,” XBRL is independent of the accounting standards or national language used to create the financial report. XBRL tags free data from static paper-based documents (and PDFs), allowing computer software to instantly find and use comprehensive, global business information.C.  IDEA, as noted in the story above, is the new Interactive Data Electronic Application system that will replace the decades-old EDGAR system public companies use to send financial data to the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the late 1990s, EDGAR was revamped to accept HTML and PDF files, but a complete new architecture is needed for today’s online world.

D.  GAAP Generally Approved Accounting Principles and standards are defined by each country for uniform accounting, though with

E.  SEPLAC is a system being developed by Spain’s XBRL organization for preventing money laundering and other illegal monetary transactions. China, which was the first country to mandate XBRL reporting back in 2004, is also making headway in the area of business intelligence and data mining to detect anomalies in financial reports.F.  Both COREP and FINREP are additional examples of how XBRL is being used for more transparent reporting by Europe’s credit institutions. CORREP stands for the COmmon solvency ratio REPorting framework being developed for credit institutions and investment firms under the future European Union capital requirements regime. FINREP is the financial reporting for credit institutions that use IFRS for their published financial statements and periodic reports required by supervisory authorities.