Obama is Bush part 3

Caterpillar's Troubling Bond Issue

User 251880,

You can cook the books to make them say anything you want-- you haven't been paying much attention the past 10yrs if you haven't seen that.

Caterpillar makes its money from finance. GE is another "industrial" company that makes almost 40% of its money from finance (down from 55% a few years ago). GM, another supposed industrial, makes **ALL** its money from Dietech and GMAC.

Caterpillar provides vendor financing for a majority of its sales -- and they book the "revenue" (which came from themselves) as sales of machinery. The cash, was was booked as a "machinery and engine" sale upfront, trickles in over several years. From an accounting standpoint, you can book this revenue as machinery sales or as financing.

CAT sold a lot of their accounts receivable, at a discount, which causes the financial products number to be understated. Also, when a customer fails to pay, the cost is assigned only to financial products (which understates financial products) -- the alleged "sale" of machinery / engines is never unwound.