ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Stabilized Accounting as proposed by Henry Whitcomb Sweeneys on the ground that the concept employed is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man or woman who would have to depend for financial information. Kenneth Macneal scores the accounting profession without mercy and by his very unreasonableness overshoots his mark. It emphasizes the importance of economic values in business affairs and the limitations of conventional statements as representations of such values and their interactions. The typical public accountant of today is, in actual fact, little more than a graduate bookkeeper. The legal point of view, the fact remains that the accountant must operate within a structure of general and corporate law. In preparing a statement of taxable income, or a showing of realized income assignable to various classes of security holders, the essence of the accountants task is a matching of revenues and costs. This does not deny the possibility or desirability of supplementary computations.
