Thriller

"The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years"

Ed Teach at CFO Magazine invokes the Michael Jackson hit as he describes the US Federal government's annual report:

• Deficits and debt and unfunded obligations abound. Some liabilities would terrify the most hardened CFO. (Try $45 trillion!)
• The worst offender by far is the Department of Defense. The GAO said the agency could not accurately account for its property, plant, and equipment, which make up 69 percent of the government's total.
• The federal mandatory spending is now more than 62 percent of the total budget
• For the 11^th year in a row the GAO could not express an opinion on the government's books, primarily because of material weaknesses in financial reporting.

Boy, they have played this April Fool's day joke on us for 7 years now - Sarbanes-Oxley to keep the private sector honest, but little to keep check on themselves.