Recently someone announced that the company was es

Recently someone announced that the company was essentially bankrupt. He then went on to say the accumulated deficit is evidence the company is insolvent. Well, first of all accumulated earnings/losses which are often referred to a retained earnings have little to do with solvency and/or debt. The number simply reports the cumulative earnings/losses for the years in business. Retained earnings are reduced by non-cash costs like depreciation and amortization and are not a good indicator of cash flow or cash available for operations and general expenses. Anyway, startups or any other company in early stages are likely to begin with negative retained earnings and hopefully as the years go by, positive earnings will eventually offset the initial losses.

I bring this up because right now it is easy to kick OWCP around as there certainly is a lot to be concerned about but lets not allow negative extremists to influence our perception of the problems. Forward looking statements must be very conservative and typically portray a bleak picture of possible events. That is how it must be to remain in compliance. OWCP is in a difficult place but there are solutions to their problems and while naysayers can have fun today, realize that they are often people that have realized a loss and are angry and want everyone else to be unhappy too.