In the following section I present the arguments as to why these elements of the Consensus are flawed.
The Standards Developed Should Be Confined to Principles and Not Become Detailed Rules
Principles, not rules, seem to be at the core of the Accounting Consensus. Doubts arise about the substance of a consensus when everybody is for it, but nobody can tell you what it means, or give you some substantive examples. We know the biblical commandments ? Thou shalt not steal, for example ? as principles. Both IFRS as well as FAS exhibit wide variation in the level of detail in their individual pronouncements.3 A recent compilation of international standards and their official interpretations and guidance published in March 2008 has 2,752 pages. One would have to think long and hard to find a profession whose principles require this many pages to state. It is difficult not to wonder about the distinction between principles and rules as visualized by the accounting standard writers.
Market valuation is a principle, as is historical cost valuation. In contrast, fairness is an ex post judgment about a particular instance of valuation in the eyes of preparers and users. Alternatively, it could be thought of as their ex ante judgment about the outcomes expected from a given method of valuation. How can a standard specify the numbers arrived at by the application of a particular method to be "fair" by definition?