Concepts Statement 2 examines the qualitative characteristics that make accounting information useful, and the FASB has gone to considerable effort to lay out what usefulness means. Usefulness for making investment, credit, and similar decisions is the most important quality in its “Hierarchy of Accounting Qualities” [the hierarchy graph is represented later in this post].  Usefulness is a high-level abstraction. To serve as a meaningful criterion or standard against which to judge the results of financial accounting, usefulness needs to be [...]