I laud John D. Dorchester Jr., MAI...

I laud John D. Dorchester Jr., MAI, for his remarkably thorough Winter 2004 article forward valuation for financial reporting (VFR) While I generally agree with the article's premise that reporting market value for land, buildings, and equipment in succession financial statements is an improvement from one side of to the other reporting depreciated historical cost for the same items, I propose a different perspective that the readers of the Dorchester article may find of interest.

In my view, the mostly positive development in the evolving discussion of VFR (or alternatively, "mark-to-market") is that it would create a sizable retreat in current U.S. accounting methodology, anchored firmly