{"id":44805,"date":"2019-04-16T07:49:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T06:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=44805"},"modified":"2019-04-16T07:49:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T06:49:42","slug":"were-really-not-very-good-when-it-comes-to-matters-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/04\/16\/were-really-not-very-good-when-it-comes-to-matters-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;re really not very good when it comes to matters of time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Leaver of Sheffield University <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamLeaver1\/status\/1117800035993948160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tweeted this comment<\/a> last night to Len Seabrooke, Rasmus Christensen and myself. We are all working on research proposals at present:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/04\/16\/were-really-not-very-good-when-it-comes-to-matters-of-time\/screen-shot-2019-04-16-at-07-41-44\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44806\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-44806\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-07.41.44-550x198.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-07.41.44-550x198.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-07.41.44-768x277.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-07.41.44-600x217.png 600w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-16-at-07.41.44.png 1042w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Patrick Jahnke is right: this is a fundamental flaw at the heart of modern accounting. I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/04\/16\/lessons-from-notre-dame\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said this morning<\/a> that nothing lasts forever, and I stand by that. It's wise to realise that's true. But to assume nothing has value in a generation's time is as flawed as thinking anything lasts in perpetuity. And what the practice of discounting in accountancy means is that no company plans for a generation hence.\u00a0And yet it is believed that investing in the shares of these companies is a rational basis for making pensions provision.<\/p>\n<p>That this is not true - because these companies have no plan for the time when pensioners will want to realise their investments - should be apparent. But it is not.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, we're really not very good when it comes to matters of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Leaver of Sheffield University tweeted this comment last night to Len Seabrooke, Rasmus Christensen and myself. We are all working on research proposals at<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/04\/16\/were-really-not-very-good-when-it-comes-to-matters-of-time\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,26,81,35,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-accounting","category-auditing","category-economics","category-pensions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}