Meanwhile, the once durable desks, computers and buildings are getting Twinkied. When networking software lets a credit card company abandon expensive real estate in Manhattan for cheap quarters in Nebraska, the Twinkie is eating the toaster. Accountants understand the general problem, but they don't know what to do about it. You never find out whether such things have real, future value until the future arrives. So securities regulators insist on expensing them to prevent inflated valuations.
Tax collectors go the other direction in order to maximize their revenue.
If the Internal Revenue Service had its way, you would have to capitalize everything from airline engine maintenance to advertising. For years, Washington quietly and earnestly miscalculated the inflation rate. Suddenly we learn that decades of numbers on productivity, wages, tax rates and Social Security are all wrong. The deficit figures may be wrong too, because they don't track capital investment. The fact is, Washington is losing its grip on economic reality.