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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (438800)	12/6/2008 6:08:45 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574273

And legacy costs are not direct labor costs either. Legacy cost is a term invented by the reporting entity to mean what they want it to mean. In the case of GM, it means DIRECT LABOR COSTS for former employees. You can't just ignore them; they are part of the cost of building cars. How you treat things when putting the company's finacial sheets together is purely an accounting practice. Duh. I mean what's 'Goodwill'? Can you touch it...can you eat it? Of course not. Its an accounting term made up to cover what is an intangible. No, it isn't. Goodwill is NOT EQUAL TO Intangible (All goodwill is intangible but not all intangibles are goodwill). Would we compare GM's goodwill to TM's we would find it lacking. Toyota has a much better rep in this country and probably in the world. Do we deny GM a loan because its goodwill is not as good? You might try but I suspect you won't get very far. Obviously, you don't have a clue what "goodwill" reported in a company's balance sheet is. It has nothing to do with a company's "reputation". You really are making a fool of yourself, at least to any accountants who may be listening. Now GM has much worse legacy costs than TM.........at least here in the US. That's because it has many more years of retired employees. They do have, but it is because GM's insane contracts with UAW call for GM to pay employees far beyond any reasonable retirement benefit. Its a problem that has to be offset in some way because it puts GM at a cost disadvantage when selling its cars. Yes, and the way you offset it is to dump the UAW and to provide retirement benefits that are appropriate for the labor in question. Just like with goodwill, you don't turn down help to GM because it has higher legacy costs but you find a way around the problem. You find a solution that neutralizes that cost. It will take the cooperation of mgmt and the union to make it happen. What you understand about these issues would fit comfortably on the head of a pin. Your posts, PARTICULARLY about Goodwill, leave me screaming with laughter. You are a T-Total Dolt. Why don't you limit your posts to school teaching, which I assume you must know SOMETHING about?