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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pink Minion who wrote (45653)	4/20/2001 10:41:15 AM
From: Mark Duper	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Just curious, anyone know the max pain #? TIA, Sup.

To: Pink Minion who wrote (45653)	4/20/2001 10:48:32 AM
From: Berk	Respond to of 70976

Likewise, I'm not an accounting expert either, certainly not enough of one to make the distinction between the two.

To: Pink Minion who wrote (45653)	4/20/2001 11:14:29 AM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

It seems like you're tossing the phrase "accounting fraud" around with great abandon for someone who isn't an expert.... Writing down the value of old product is quite common. The difference between a "write-down" and a "write-off" seems to me to just be a matter of semantics, based on the size of the write-down. Yes, the cost to make goods should be accounted for. But suppose you bought a bunch of chips for $1000. They become obsolete after six months, and you sell them for surplus at $100, giving you a $900 writeoff. Six months after that, you need the chips after all, and buy them back on the open market for $1. So the cost of goods sold is $1, and you have a $900 writeoff. I'm not an expert either, but I don't see how my example is substantially different from what CSCO is doing. The alternative would be to carry the chips on the books as an asset valued at $1000. Seems to me that that would be fraudulent, since it would inflate the book value of the company. Katherine