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    Scrappah is offline Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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    I'm reluctant to post to the thread again but i really would urge caution.

    The EBDITA numbers are not a trustworthy indicator of performance. The main problem is that it's uncommonly difficult to get reliable data on the changing value of a currency. Hypothetical example: The Acme Widget company posted a net profit of 1,000,000 dollars in 2004. Ten years later in 2014 it posted a net profit of 1,250,00 dollars. At first glance it would appear that profits increased by 250 k.

    There's a fly in the soup ! Over that ten year period the value of the currency (the buying power) dropped by 50%. After adjusting for currency inflation real profits actually dropped from one million to 750 K. The business is showing a downward trend in profitability.

    This isn't so bad as long as the company has a very healthy margin of profit. If the company is only marginally profitable the real numbers might indicate that it's actually running in the red & headed for bankruptcy.



    Warren Buffet's opinion on the EBDITA might be worth looking into.

    =============
    There is a difference between being a long term paid employee of a company and being an owner of a business. As an owner you've got to be constantly asking yourself how what you're doing fits within the big picture. There are forces in play far bigger than yourself that you have absolutely no control over. Most of the time your tail end is hanging out there in the breeze. About the best that anyone can do is to develop some kind of forward thinking and adapt to future trends well ahead of time. If you call it right you survive. If you call it wrong your business dies and you lose everything.

    Part of it depends on which economic model you subscribe to.

    One of the more popular models is the Keynesian model:

    What Is Keynesian Economics? - Back to Basics - Finance & Development, September 2014

    One of the more conservative is that of Von Mises:

    Ludwig von Mises: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty

    I know that this is stuff that most folks don't think about all that much but it can be an awfully hard fight if you find yourself swimming against the current.

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