Why would an outsider with a good reputation take the risk of signing off on Freddie’s financial results? It’s a horribly complex mess and a political albatross. And it’s still a key player in propping up the mortgage market with trillions of dollars of obligations held by all sorts of central banks in addition to many US citizens’ 401ks.

Plus the job comes with the additional perk of being hated by everyone.

Oh, and the last Freddie CFO committed suicide.

I vote for all of them.

You’ll find Worldcom did the same type of thing for Bernie Ebbers.

As for Premier, it’s been on our radar for awhile — ever since we footnoted them last spring.

The first comes from Premier Exhibitions which has an exhibitions called “Bodies” that features real human bodies that have been plasticized. Here’s a disclosure from their latest 10-Q:

4. Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets
In the first quarter, management assessed the amount of human anatomical displays it has to exhibit and compared that amount to the estimated addressable market for such exhibitions. In management’s judgment, the Company maintained an excess capacity of human anatomical displays and is in the process of reducing the amount of capacity by negotiating a return of certain specimens. Consequently, those specimens have no future estimated cash flows associated with them and the previously capitalized and yet unamortized costs of such specimens are no longer considered recoverable; therefore, the Company recorded an impairment charge of $1.9 million to reduce the carrying value of the finite lived intangibles related to those specimens to zero. Because there was goodwill associated with the original acquisition of those specimen sets, the Company recorded an impairment charge of $2.6 million to reduce the carrying value of goodwill to zero.

So these people are not only dead, they are now impaired. I assume that their life expectancy for amortization purposes was also reduced.

The second comes from FirstData and it’s actually an 8-K. It seems the company hired a new controller and chief accounting officer. How big a signing bonus do you think is necessary to attract a quality controller in the current market? $25k? $125k? $250k? Let’s be generous and say $500k. Well here’s an excerpt from that 8-K.

On September 30, 2009, the Board of Directors of First Data Corporation (the “Company”) appointed Raymond E. Winborne, 41, as Senior Vice President and Controller of the Company. Mr. Winborne was the Senior Vice President-Finance and Controller of Delta Air Lines Inc. from April 2007 to September 2009 and served as the Senior Vice President, CFO Southeast Region for AT&T, Inc. from January 2007 to April 2007. Prior to that time, Mr. Winborne held various positions in the finance group of BellSouth Corporation from January 1999 to December 2006, most recently serving as the BellSouth’s Controller. From 1990 to 1999, Mr. Winborne was employed by the public accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. Mr. Winborne will receive an annual salary of $400,000, be eligible for a target bonus of $300,000 and receive a sign-on bonus of $1.5 million.

You have to wonder how those negotiations went. Did the company offer $1 million and he talked them up to $1.5 or did he ask for $2.0 only to be forced to settle for $1.5?