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To: GraceZ who wrote (146180)	1/25/2002 1:26:19 PM
From: oldirtybastard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

you know when they say if you owe the bank enough, then you own the bank...well, debt/equity what's the difference these days? this country is owned, everybody needs to play along with the surreal charade.

To: GraceZ who wrote (146180)	1/25/2002 1:28:21 PM
From: reaper	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

<<seeing KM in bankruptcy with half as many debts as assets>> Grace, you understate KMs debt level substantially by just looking at the balance sheet. KM has over 2000 stores, all but a handful of which are leased. If my mortgage and car loan are debt (which they are) then K-Mart's operating leases (which are off-balance sheet) are debt. This is exactly why they will have to close 400-700 stores, because the leases payments they are obligated to make (sounds sorta like an interest payment??) are not economical relative to the lack of profits those stores generate. And the land-lords will be left holding the bag. Anyway, the capitalized value of these operating lease payments is +/- $6-7 billion. KMart also has about $400mm of guarantees on leases of former subsidiaries Sports Authority, Borders, and OfficeMax. Plus KMart had guaranteed the indebtedness of certain of its landlords, to the tune of $100mm. So KMart had a lot more "debt" than was visible on its balance sheets. fwiw, if any of you ever think about investing in an airline, don't rely on their balance sheets either. most of their planes are not owned but are under operating leases. do you think GE Capital thinks that the money US Air owes it under an operating lease is NOT debt?? in case anybody cares, usually all this information can be found in the "committments and contingencies" footnote. Cheers