Truth by Fiat: Its Accountants' Turn

In 1897, Indiana General Assembly was persuaded to consider Bill #246 which provided a method for squaring the circle by ruler and compass (millenniums after unsuccessful search, and 15 years after Lindemann proved it to be mathematically impossible), and effectively declaring the value of pi to be rather convenient 3.2. A physician almost succeeded in getting this bill passed by arguing that the state could collect royalties from those who may use this discovery, and was stopped only by arguments of a real mathematician who just happened to be present.

In recent years, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have declared that in corporate financial reporting stock variables (such as assets and liabilities) have priority over flow variables (such as revenues and expenses).

But stocks and flows are related to each other in a way that precludes the idea of dependence of one over the other. Value of asset derives from the benefits that flow to its owner over time; returns on an investment flow out of its value. It makes little more sense to declare one to have priority over the other than to declare that days precede nights, or that chicken came before the egg.

There have been numerous attempts in human history to establish scientific truth through exercise of political, military, or bureaucratic power or fiat. Of these, declaration of primacy of stocks over flows is neither the first, nor the silliest; it is also unlikely to be the last.