[gwern]

That's a good point - revenue is not profit - but I'm not sure it is it a conclusive point. First, why would you assume the final estimate of revenue which came out of the sausage system of the legal system, with Best Buy's lawyers presumably heavily incentivized to knock down the estimate at every point in every way possible, is remotely accurate? An economics book on cartels and their prosecution I read (_Global Price Fixing_) noted dryly that the estimates of illicit revenues and hence profits in the cases were nowhere near what an outside would calculate especially in the case of the vitamin cartels.

(A more picayune point is that a small profit or a loss to Best Buy in one case doesn't mean that its practices are not a net expected profit; indeed, if they weren't losing an occasional case, they probably aren't taking enough risks to make the most possible profit.)

[tptacek]

The gross margin comes from Best Buy's SEC filings. They have every incentive in the world to report the highest possible margin.

[ruby_on_rails]

Not really, best buy and any other company of its size are more concerned with tax filings (which should be an "Ah Ha" moment for those of you at home), which generally gives companies an incentive to jack up costs and consequently decrease revenue. If you want a better idea of what their margins actually are you best bet would be to talk to a good (read: independent) investment analyst.

Also, best buy pays ~27 million (adjusting for the time value of money over two years at 2.5% gives us 25 million, btw) for a golden goose they can reuse year over year and had they build it themselves they wouldn't have had it immediately. I don't have all the details, but the project (including legal costs) will likely pay for itself before 5 years is up. They also mitigated any risk with building it themselves and doing it wrong which would cost additional time and money.

As a side note, I am curious if the court decision has any impact on the possible of Best Buy whoring out their duplicate system.

[tptacek]

This comment suggests that Best Buy, a publicly traded company, is incentivized to minimize its gross margins. That is an extraordinary claim.

Meanwhile, Best Buy no longer operates the buyback program. The program wasn't a golden goose.

[ruby_on_rails]

You misunderstand. Minimizing margins and maximizing revenues are not mutually exclusive. Also, saying an entity is publicly traded irrelevant, as you are suggesting we know every detail about a company simply by reviewing their financial documents and investor relations mail; this is not the case.

Furthermore, I will happily make the "extraordinary" claim that, in general, large companies are incentivized to minimize margins to reap the tax benefits. Then again I am Joe Blow with a whole 46 karma, therefore, I must not be as smart or knowledgeable as a lurker like you with 1000's of karma, right? (oh and this one is a rhetorical question)

As usual on this particular site, if someone doesn't like the truth, they simply think its wrong because they don't like it. I half expected to get super down voted by all the closed minded individuals that have <~500 karma, but I guess you had the skeleton shift ehh tptacek.

As far as the golden goose goes, even if they scrap the program they are still better off. Does it sound better pouring far more money into building what you think is a golden goose only to make a lemon? That and they still have the system if they want to modify it and roll it out again a couple years from now. Also, they got the system right away and immediately got feedback from it. They saved a lot of time, time that they will use now on more lucrative projects.

[tptacek]

Best Buy is priced in the market in part based on their margins.

[ruby_on_rails]

I can only assume that you have failed every economics course you have ever taken, because if you left without understanding the concept of supply and demand orthe concept of value, then there is really nothing I can say to you other than avoid procreating. Though I certainly wish market pricing was determined via plot hole. It would certainly lead to more entertaining conversations. Next you can explain to me why the world is flat or why water is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, or some other fundementally flawed concept. Have you written any books? I think I could do an entire 2-hour talk on just how fucking stupid you are. You my friend are a gold mine.

Ohh maybe you have a blog. But, in all seriousness, avoid procreating, there are enough retarded people that society has to care for.

[johnrgrace]

Your point would be right if companies SEC filing matched their tax filings. Companies are ALLOWED to keep a set of Tax record books and accounting record books and pay taxes based on the profits from their tax books. The Tax books have been screwed with beyond all belief, the SEC ones not so much. My wife is a CPA and I've got a masters of finance and have spent time doing the tax book game.