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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter J Hudson who wrote (114191)	2/24/2002 4:54:40 PM
From: Stock Farmer	Respond to of 152472

Peter, distorting the facts? No. Merely pointing out consequences of decisions. If you intentionally poke a hole in someone's aorta it is unlikely they die from the injury itself. More likely they die from lack of oxygenation to the body's tissues sometime later. They do not die from the little hole you poked. Nor do they die when you poked them. But the end result is material, and the defense "come on, it was just a little hole" or "I didn't think all his blood would gush out" do not excuse the result. Same with stock options. At the time of grant there is every intention for value to accrue to employees. What is not known at the time is the amount. Pretending that the value is zero is where the deception lies. Accounting for stock options on the premise that the value is zero is even more deceptive. Particularly for companies which rely on this non-zero zero-cost item in order to boost their apparent profitability. Or, in many cases, to even show a profit. Because if they had to pay employees what it actually cost them to do business, they'd be losing money right left and center. Or not making as much as it shows on the books. So instead they let the shareholders do it and hope that everyone is as observant as you? The actual cost of options is an actual cost to shareholders. Period. Whether or not it was decided (but unknown in magnitude) some months or years earlier at the time of grant. Not accounting for any of that cost is merely hiding the consequences. IMHO. And tricking people to think they are buying a slice of something worth way more than it is. Nice. If you can get away with it. John