Leslie, I think you’re right that the reporting has become overly complex but I’d argue the bigger issue isn’t just accounting, it’s how firms manage FX versus how they report it.

The article makes a key point: FX risk is fungible and can’t be neatly segmented into accounting buckets.
That’s exactly where things start to break down accounting tries to categorize what is fundamentally an enterprise-wide risk.

So what happens?

You get “paper volatility” driving reported earnings
Hedging decisions get influenced by accounting optics instead of economic reality
Management optimizes for smooth P&L instead of actual risk-adjusted outcomes

Your approach starting with comprehensive income and decomposing it is actually closer to how FX should be understood: as part of total enterprise risk, not a line item to be managed in isolation.

But I’d take it one step further:

The real failure isn’t that GAAP is too complex it’s that companies are still running FX through a treasury lens instead of a risk + commercial lens.

Until firms:

- define clear risk objectives (cash flow, earnings-at-risk, valuation)
- align hedging with business strategy
- and separate economic reality from accounting presentation

…we’ll keep seeing exactly what you’re describing reports that are technically correct but commercially misleading.

In short: the accounting didn’t break the system it just exposed that most firms never had a coherent FX strategy to begin with.