So Is Expensing Inevitable Anyway?

Growing pressure from investors, threats of Congressional action, the push by the International Accounting Standards Board to require options expensing, constant media exposure, the decision by Standard & Poor's to report earnings as if options were expensed, and the increasing practice of the financial press to disclose how options would affect corporate earnings in major companies, all suggest that options expensing may be inevitable. Of course, things can change quickly if the market steadies, corporate scandals decline, executive compensation comes back down to near orbit, if not to earth, and the media goes on to some other topic. But the fact remains that the presence of options expensing in footnotes has made the issue increasingly moot. Investors who want to look at earnings minus options costs just need to make an additional calculation. If that's the case anyway, companies may want to earn brownie points with investors by being more up-front with their accounting.