Gravity Experiment and Questions of common sense

So 565 billion dollars was just an accounting error?

From your link, it doesn't mean the money is missing, it means that the paperwork is somehow inadequate.

Like if I bought a $50 sweater, but didn't keep the receipt.

Has $50 dollars gone missing? No. I just don't have detailed evidence of when where how I paid for it.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 11:28:26 AM

So 565 billion dollars was just an accounting error?

From your link, it doesn't mean the money is missing, it means that the paperwork is somehow inadequate.

Like if I bought a $50 sweater, but didn't keep the receipt.

Has $50 dollars gone missing? No. I just don't have detailed evidence of when where how I paid for it.

I spent 17 years as a military dependent, listening to father and a couple of my brother bitch about government paperwork.

Every dime has to be accounted for, every time.  Alex had to pay out 70something bucks from his own pocket once when he lost some thingie in the field and couldn't account for it.

Are you telling me that the government controls that require that a soldier being shot at keep track of his crap are less stringent for NASA?

That a government that requires that military personnel keep track of stuff for twenty years (If they stay in the service that long.) doesn't require a mechanic on an airfield to keep track of his stuff?

565 billion dollars of loss over the 48 years that NASA has been around equals a little over 11 billion dollars a year in losses.  Since for the first few years they didn't get nearly that much money and in 2008 they only got 17.something billion...

Those numbers are impossible.

That is not an accounting error.  That is a cover up, a Conspiracy, something.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 12:02:52 PM

565 billion dollars of loss over the 48 years

it not loss

people here tell you it not loss

why you keep saying it loss?

The GAO says it's gone...

The people that lost it claim it's an accounting program problem...

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has long been criticized for its inability to manage costs. During the 1990s, faced with flat budgets and ambitious program goals, NASA adopted a management approach of "faster, better, cheaper." But by the decade's end, the approach was blamed for a number of mission failures. Meanwhile, the cost of the International Space Station (ISS) spiraled billions of dollars over budget. Embattled administrator Daniel Goldin resigned in 2001 after nearly 10 years on the job, and NASA named Sean O'Keefe, a self-described "bean counter," as Goldin's replacement."

"Two weeks later, troubling new doubts were raised about NASA's financial management. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late. Because of "the lack of a sufficient audit trail to support that its financial statements are presented fairly," concluded the auditors, "it was not possible to complete further audit procedures on NASA's September 30, 2003, financial statements within the reporting deadline established by [the Office of Management and Budget]." "

"Financial Lowlights
PwC's audit found numerous basic reporting errors in the year-end and third-quarter financial statements that had nothing to do with the conversion, and which auditors said finance executives should have caught before filing the statements.

For example, in the June 2003 quarterly statement, auditors found a $204 million line item called "Other" that "could not be explained or supported, indicating that NASA had not correctly reconciled its budgetary resources to its net cost of operations." PwC also found a $200 million discrepancy between identical line items on two different financial statements. In the year-end audit, PwC discovered that NASA's stated fund balance was actually $2 billion more than the balance in its Treasury account."

"The agency also changed the method used to depreciate assets without disclosing that it had done so and explaining why, as is required by government financial-reporting regulations. And it continued to use an incorrect method to account for costs incurred, despite repeated warnings from the General Accounting Office (GAO) and PwC that the method did not even comply with NASA's own financial-management manual. "

The entire article, from CEO magazine, is filled with evidence that NASA shouldn't be allowed to control a dime let alone a budget of billions of dollars.

And yet, they continue to get money from the government, despite financial errors every year.

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

That's some pretty damning evidence right there... you see that, RE'ers?  EVIDENCE.

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you believe that "adequately documented" means?  Have you ever been involved in performing an audit like the one that Price Waterhouse performed?  Do you know what standards PWC uses in determining "adequate documentation"?

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 12:55:58 PM

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you believe that "adequately documented" means?  Have you ever been involved in performing an audit like the one that Price Waterhouse performed?  Do you know what standards PWC uses in determining "adequate documentation"?

You can find the required standards on the GAO website.  I have not read the entire thing, but the standards of being able to account for your property and cash expenditures seems fairly simply, by government standards.

The fact that NASA haemorrhages money doesn't surprise me, but that it was that much is pretty disturbing.

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 01:16:03 PM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 12:55:58 PM

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you believe that "adequately documented" means?  Have you ever been involved in performing an audit like the one that Price Waterhouse performed?  Do you know what standards PWC uses in determining "adequate documentation"?

You can find the required standards on the GAO website.  I have not read the entire thing, but the standards of being able to account for your property and cash expenditures seems fairly simply, by government standards.

In other words, no.  You have never been involved in such an audit and have no idea what PWC or the GAO considers adequate documentation.  That's what I thought.
[/Tom Bishop]

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 01:20:47 PM

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 01:16:03 PM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 12:55:58 PM

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you believe that "adequately documented" means?  Have you ever been involved in performing an audit like the one that Price Waterhouse performed?  Do you know what standards PWC uses in determining "adequate documentation"?

You can find the required standards on the GAO website.  I have not read the entire thing, but the standards of being able to account for your property and cash expenditures seems fairly simply, by government standards.

In other words, no.  You have never been involved in such an audit and have no idea what PWC or the GAO considers adequate documentation.  That's what I thought.
[/Tom Bishop]

And?  The fact remains that NASA cannot meet any standards, even the ones the bleeding infantry meets.

Guys like my brother, with no formal education, are taking better care of their funds than the people that are supposed to be launching us into space?

Oh, that makes me feel so good.

Quote from: zork on March 07, 2009, 03:49:04 AM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 06, 2009, 10:42:52 AM

NASA is doing something with huge chunks of money.  I have posted at least a dozen links to claims of lost money, including the one above.

If NASA is so clean, what happened to that 565 billion dollars they can't account for?

And please don't try to claim that half a trillion dollars is an accounting error.

Not accounting error. Quote from the link you gave:
NASA says blame for the financial mayhem falls squarely on the so-called Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP), an ambitious enterprise-software implementation. In June 2003, the agency finished rolling out the core financial module of the program's SAP R/3 system. NASA's CFO, Gwendolyn Brown, says the conversion to the new system caused the problems with the audit. In particular, she blames the difficulty the agency had converting the historical financial data from 10 legacy systems ? some written in COBOL ? into the new system, and reconciling the two versions for its year-end reports.
 I guess you are expert for migrating stuff from legacy systems so that you can say for sure that there can't be problems in way of transition from older systems to new one.

So 565 billion dollars was just an accounting error?

I guess we have different understanding what accounting error is. You see from the text above that reason is "accounting error". I see that the problem raised from migrating old data from miscellaneous systems to new system. And this is not in my understanding "accounting error". But let it be, I see that you are an expert in bookkeeping and migrating data from legacy systems.

I wonder how many 'legacy systems' they integrate every year...

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 11:28:26 AM

Quote from: zork on March 07, 2009, 03:49:04 AM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 06, 2009, 10:42:52 AM

NASA is doing something with huge chunks of money.  I have posted at least a dozen links to claims of lost money, including the one above.

If NASA is so clean, what happened to that 565 billion dollars they can't account for?

And please don't try to claim that half a trillion dollars is an accounting error.

Not accounting error. Quote from the link you gave:
NASA says blame for the financial mayhem falls squarely on the so-called Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP), an ambitious enterprise-software implementation. In June 2003, the agency finished rolling out the core financial module of the program's SAP R/3 system. NASA's CFO, Gwendolyn Brown, says the conversion to the new system caused the problems with the audit. In particular, she blames the difficulty the agency had converting the historical financial data from 10 legacy systems ? some written in COBOL ? into the new system, and reconciling the two versions for its year-end reports.
 I guess you are expert for migrating stuff from legacy systems so that you can say for sure that there can't be problems in way of transition from older systems to new one.

So 565 billion dollars was just an accounting error?

I guess we have different understanding what accounting error is. You see from the text above that reason is "accounting error". I see that the problem raised from migrating old data from miscellaneous systems to new system. And this is not in my understanding "accounting error". But let it be, I see that you are an expert in bookkeeping and migrating data from legacy systems.

And again.  If you go to the bank and their records say you're missing 10,000 dollars, don't you come back and go through your receipts and papers to find it?

Of course you do.  Every dime NASA has ever gotten is covered by some piece of paper or another.  They could do the entire Audit without any computers at all.

But apparently, it's easier to accept that errors made 565 billion dollars disappear.

I mean, what half a trillion dollars to the government?

I may not be a computer expert, but I have been dealing with government paperwork for more than ten years now and you cannot convince me that NASA shouldn't have been keeping paper records of their money.

The government runs on triplicate forms.

 Every dime NASA has ever gotten is covered by some piece of paper or another.  They could do the entire Audit without any computers at all.

I may not be a computer expert, but I have been dealing with government paperwork for more than ten years now and you cannot convince me that NASA shouldn't have been keeping paper records of their money.

The government runs on triplicate forms.

  And you can't convince me that they have all things on paper and preserved for I don't know how many years(I have more than five years experience running government computer systems). And article said that they converted their financial data from 10 legacy systems. So, no papers.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 01:56:30 PM

 Every dime NASA has ever gotten is covered by some piece of paper or another.  They could do the entire Audit without any computers at all.

I may not be a computer expert, but I have been dealing with government paperwork for more than ten years now and you cannot convince me that NASA shouldn't have been keeping paper records of their money.

The government runs on triplicate forms.

  And you can't convince me that they have all things on paper and preserved for I don't know how many years(I have more than five years experience running government computer systems). And article said that they converted their financial data from 10 legacy systems. So, no papers.

Excuse me?  This is the government we're talking about... the people that have papers from WW1 in warehouses.  Somewhere, all those bloody triplicate forms are either being stored or converted to microfiche and stored.

In fact, I would bet these are the people that are storing them:

http://www.archives.gov/  National Archives and Records Adminastration.

Here is a list of all the places they store records and there are a couple of articles about how they store record for our posterity.

http://www.archives.gov/locations/states.html

It might be a pain in the ass, but you can audit anyone in the government without using a computer.

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 01:33:30 PM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 01:20:47 PM

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 01:16:03 PM

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 07, 2009, 12:55:58 PM

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you believe that "adequately documented" means?  Have you ever been involved in performing an audit like the one that Price Waterhouse performed?  Do you know what standards PWC uses in determining "adequate documentation"?

You can find the required standards on the GAO website.  I have not read the entire thing, but the standards of being able to account for your property and cash expenditures seems fairly simply, by government standards.

In other words, no.  You have never been involved in such an audit and have no idea what PWC or the GAO considers adequate documentation.  That's what I thought.
[/Tom Bishop]

And?  The fact remains that NASA cannot meet any standards, even the ones the bleeding infantry meets.

Guys like my brother, with no formal education, are taking better care of their funds than the people that are supposed to be launching us into space?

Oh, that makes me feel so good.

Guys like your brother handle $17 billion budgets?

BTW, could you please cite where that report says that the $565 billion is actually missing?  Not properly documented is not necessarily the same thing as missing.  Please get back to me when you have a proper understanding of accounting principles.

Excuse me?  This is the government we're talking about... the people that have papers from WW1 in warehouses.  Somewhere, all those bloody triplicate forms are either being stored or converted to microfiche and stored.

Yes, I know that you think so, but you don't know for sure how things really are. So don't I and because of that we can't exactly argue over this matter.

Not properly documented is not necessarily the same thing as missing.  Please get back to me when you have a proper understanding of accounting principles.

It's true, if the money is missing, it means it's supposed to be there, but it isn't.  (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but the $20 that was there went missing, so now I get no pizza.)
If the money isn't properly documented, it means that it was spent, and there's something that says it's spent, but nobody really knows where. (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but instead of the $20, there's a receipt for $18.96 that doesn't identify the vendor, or the item purchased, like what you'd find at a shady mini-mart, so now I get no pizza.)

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 04:15:41 PM

Not properly documented is not necessarily the same thing as missing.  Please get back to me when you have a proper understanding of accounting principles.

It's true, if the money is missing, it means it's supposed to be there, but it isn't.  (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but the $20 that was there went missing, so now I get no pizza.)
If the money isn't properly documented, it means that it was spent, and there's something that says it's spent, but nobody really knows where. (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but instead of the $20, there's a receipt for $18.96 that doesn't identify the vendor, or the item purchased, like what you'd find at a shady mini-mart, so now I get no pizza.)

This is simply a tempest in a teacup. PwC refused to sign off on the audit because NASA couldn't get all of their various legacy systems up to the new standards in time.

To correct the analogy: You go to the mini-mart. You spend $18.96. You get a receipt, but the receipt used Times font instead of the newly required Arial. So the IRS refuses to allow you to claim the expense.

Quote from: markjo on March 07, 2009, 04:15:41 PM

Not properly documented is not necessarily the same thing as missing.  Please get back to me when you have a proper understanding of accounting principles.

It's true, if the money is missing, it means it's supposed to be there, but it isn't.  (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but the $20 that was there went missing, so now I get no pizza.)
If the money isn't properly documented, it means that it was spent, and there's something that says it's spent, but nobody really knows where. (I go into my wallet to pull out a $20 to buy a pizza, but instead of the $20, there's a receipt for $18.96 that doesn't identify the vendor, or the item purchased, like what you'd find at a shady mini-mart, so now I get no pizza.)

Did you miss the part where the auditors and the GAO also say that NASA has been told repeatedly that their accounting doesn't meet any standards?  It was quite clearly laid out.

If your boss made you fill out three forms in triplicate every time you bought anything, you would have a receipt that didn't have a vendor name on it, would you?

The point is, we have a major agency who cannot keep track of their money, despite government regulations, thousands of accountants and highly intelligent leadership.

And yet, despite repeated warnings and complaints, nothing is done about it.  That is not normal.  There is something going on here that is not in any paper or news item.  The government doesn't allow any agency to continue losing billions of dollars every year without doing something about it, certainly not for 18 straight years.

And yet... it continues.

Why?

Huh...  If someone is making masses of money off of this situation and spreading the wealth around a bit, that would make sense.

It's not as if peculation and theft are new to any government agency, even if this is a bit more dramitic than the norm.

Did you miss the part where the auditors and the GAO also say that NASA has been told repeatedly that their accounting doesn't meet any standards?  It was quite clearly laid out.

"Not meeting standards", "not properly documented", "inadequately documented", non of this means the money has gone missing.

I explained why here:

From your link, it doesn't mean the money is missing, it means that the paperwork is somehow inadequate.

Like if I bought a $50 sweater, but didn't keep the receipt.

Has $50 dollars gone missing? No. I just don't have detailed evidence of when where how I paid for it.

Do you read posts at all? Or are you in write only mode?

"Financial Lowlights
PwC's audit found numerous basic reporting errors in the year-end and third-quarter financial statements that had nothing to do with the conversion, and which auditors said finance executives should have caught before filing the statements.

For example, in the June 2003 quarterly statement, auditors found a $204 million line item called "Other" that "could not be explained or supported, indicating that NASA had not correctly reconciled its budgetary resources to its net cost of operations." PwC also found a $200 million discrepancy between identical line items on two different financial statements. In the year-end audit, PwC discovered that NASA's stated fund balance was actually $2 billion more than the balance in its Treasury account."

"The agency also changed the method used to depreciate assets without disclosing that it had done so and explaining why, as is required by government financial-reporting regulations. And it continued to use an incorrect method to account for costs incurred, despite repeated warnings from the General Accounting Office (GAO) and PwC that the method did not even comply with NASA's own financial-management manual. "

They don't follow the rules, despite repeated warnings, they don't account for the money spent, they make errors so basic that anyone doing math should have seen them.

That's not about documenting the money trail, that's about something else.

Instead of skimming my posts, why don't you read the entire article that I pulled those bits from?

You didn't even read my post, or you would have seen this:  "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agency's auditor, issued a disclaimed opinion on NASA's 2003 financial statements. PwC complained that NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion ? billion ? in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late."  (Second sentence, second paragraph.)

Oh, I'm sorry... expecting you to read is a bit much, isn't it?

In an audit, a qualified, or disclaimed opinion isn't necessarily a terrible thing.  The main difference between an unqualified (the best there is) and a qualified opinion is that some aspect of the financial statement isn't quite right.  The fact that it's a qualified (disclaimed) opinion means that the misstatement isn't considered material (significant) by the auditor, but is a misstatement none the less that requires the auditor to comment on it in their report.  My point is that if the $565 billion was a material problem, or if NASA wasn't following GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) then the financial statements would have received an adverse opinion.

Not that it really matters, but I'm an accountant by trade.  I don't have PWC's working papers for NASA, so I can't say for sure whether or not PWC were using GAAS (generally accepted auditing standards) correctly or not, but if someone wants to get them for me under the FOI act, I'd be happy to peruse them in my spare time for error.

...
They don't follow the rules, despite repeated warnings, they don't account for the money spent, they make errors so basic that anyone doing math should have seen them.

That's not about documenting the money trail, that's about something else.
...

To use an analogy... I conclude that you've lied about everything you've ever posted here as part of some bigger conspiracy.

You can't follow the standard of uses sentences, despite repeated warnings and years of education. You splice together independent thoughts into one eye-torturing mire. You make errors so basic that anyone writing English should have seen them. Therefore you must be lying and part of the Conspiracy behind FE.

... Just an analogy.

They don't follow the rules, despite repeated warnings, they don't account for the money spent, they make errors so basic that anyone doing math should have seen them.

Yes yes. "Incorrect method of documentation... changed the method used to depreciate assets... basic reporting errors" None of this indicates money has gone missing.

And you certainly haven't convinced anyone that 565 BILLION has been stolen. A few million if any at all.

Instead of skimming my posts, why don't you read the entire article that I pulled those bits from?

I don't need to. You kindly pick out the parts which you claim strengthen your case. I tell you why they don't. Symbiotic perfection.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 08, 2009, 12:20:48 PM

They don't follow the rules, despite repeated warnings, they don't account for the money spent, they make errors so basic that anyone doing math should have seen them.

Yes yes. "Incorrect method of documentation... changed the method used to depreciate assets... basic reporting errors" None of this indicates money has gone missing.

And you certainly haven't convinced anyone that 565 BILLION has been stolen. A few million if any at all.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 08, 2009, 12:20:48 PM

Instead of skimming my posts, why don't you read the entire article that I pulled those bits from?

I don't need to. You kindly pick out the parts which you claim strengthen your case. I tell you why they don't. Symbiotic perfection.

So, you admit that your only knowledge of this topic is the information I post?

So, you admit that your only knowledge of this topic is the information I post?

I use good reasoning too.

Something you're lacking.

Any chance of you showing us the evidence that 565 BILLION was stolen, instead of a few references to irregularities around a few million.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 08, 2009, 12:39:12 PM

So, you admit that your only knowledge of this topic is the information I post?

I use good reasoning too.

Something you're lacking.

Any chance of you showing us the evidence that 565 BILLION was stolen, instead of a few references to irregularities around a few million.

I did.  It's in those links you don't want to read.

You're reasoning is flawed, because you don't have the full story.  You are taking a few words out of tens of thousands and trying to make a whole picture from it.

I did.  It's in those links you don't want to read.

You're reasoning is flawed, because you don't have the full story.  You are taking a few words out of tens of thousands and trying to make a whole picture from it.

Uh huh. You mean there's stronger evidence for your case in the article/links and you're just deciding not to post it here.

This is an interesting debating technique.

Quote from: Ravenwood240 on March 08, 2009, 12:43:54 PM

I did.  It's in those links you don't want to read.

You're reasoning is flawed, because you don't have the full story.  You are taking a few words out of tens of thousands and trying to make a whole picture from it.

Uh huh. You mean there's stronger evidence for your case in the article/links and you're just deciding not to post it here.

This is an interesting debating technique.

This is a forum.  The people here have a way to deal with long posts... you might have seen it:  TL;DR?

If you post a solid block of words, or too many words, they ignore it.  Since I am here for the debate, it behooves me to accept the limitations of the board.

So, I post small bits designed to draw anyone interested into reading it, where upon we can debate the subject.  If they're not interested, they don't post on that topic and i move on to something else.

You're the first person that has admitted not being willing to look at the subject but still is willing to discuss it as if you knew about it.