re: XBRL - an XML description of descriptions

[David RR Webber <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Message text written by Todd Boyle
>Why do CPAs allow businesses to create great ambiguity in their 
accounting systems,
<<<<<<<<<<<<

Todd,

As a Physicist by training I've alway viewed accounting as 
columns of simple arithmetic obscured by the use of arcane and 
deliberately misleading terminology.

Payments become debits and receipts become credits!

Of course this is the art of fine consulting - take something
initutively obvious - invent a whole new set of terminology
for it - and sell it back to the owners for some vastly
inflated fee.

Then of course the government enters the fray, and now
tax avoidance is a major objective, and the less able  
anyone is to figure out what you actually may owe there,
the better!

Computers can help this situation by obscuring things
faster and in even more complicated and untraceable
ways.

Viva the status quo.

DW.