21.   Accounting rules governing those transactions require that any amount paid in excess of the asset values be written off over time, causing a reduction in earnings.

22.   Accounting rules in the insurance world are obscure, said Paul Brown, chairman of the accounting department at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

23.   Accounting rules once were highly technical things that drew little attention from Congress.

24.   Accounting rules give financial institutions flexibility about when they choose to recognize venture capital profits.

25.   Accounting rules permit this.

26.   But cultural conflicts and varying tax and accounting rules make any intra-Europe mergers challenging at best.

27.   But it seems unlikely that government will fix our dysfunctional accounting rules anytime soon.

28.   But their opponents say that with the help of global accounting rules, they eventually will win the war.

29.   But under current accounting rules, companies issuing such options would have to report a compensation expense when they granted the options.

30.   But under the accounting rules that the city follows, it must spend all the money it receives in a given year by the end of that year.