Comprehensive Income

Categories: Econ, Regulations

In accounting, not all income is the same. There's net income, which is what you probably think of when you think of income. Then there's a kind of miscellaneous category referred to as "other comprehensive income." Add net income to other comprehensive income...and you get comprehensive income.

So...what's this other comprehensive income? For lack of a better description, it's the fuzzier forms of income that aren't just someone paying you money for the product or service you provide. These are items that don't show up on the income statement.

It includes various unrealized gains or losses ("unrealized" meaning the company hasn't cashed it in yet). Like, if the company holds hedges or derivative instruments. Or if it has an unrealized gain or loss from the sale of stock. All this stuff gets thrown into the "comprehensive income" pile, along with the more straightforward net income.

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Finance: What are Subsidies?6 Views

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finance a la shmoop what are subsidies they're handouts pork donations [empty hands, man puts coins in homeless man's cup]

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political vote buying that is when a given industry can't compete on a level

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playing field either domestically like a US cattle producer not being able to [cattle in fields]

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compete against cheap mad cow meat from central Russia well the US government

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will give subsidies or free money to those American cattle farmers so that

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they can you know keep on keepin on that is the world market for ground beef

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might be two bucks a pound but the cheapest price at which US producers can

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produce their meat is 220 a pound so the US government hoping to keep their

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farmers employed and not wanting a repeat of the Joad Family Singers that [cowboy on cattle ranch]

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you remember them from Grapes of Wrath will subsidize farmer meat production to

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the tune of some f40 cents a pound in free money donations courtesy of the

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American taxpayer given to farmers so that they can keep farming and compete [money from people going to government, then to farmers]

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without actually having to slaughter and then maintain mad cow pastures just as [man cows with uni-brows]

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they do southeast of the Chernobyl nuclear plant and it's the government [cows near Chernobyl]

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policy that we want to keep our American farmers alive and well to meat produce

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for another day all right well the same government handouts occur

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internationally where US manufacturers have to compete against countries who [people working in labs]

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allow all of their own countries companies to collude co-opt and work

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together in aggressively competitive ways trying to dominate a world market

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so think about the cattle industry in Russia where the Russian government is

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an active supporter of its own Russian companies coming first ahead of those [Putin holding up patriotic signs]

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from other countries you know yeah we're wondering why this is bad like why do

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people act surprised when countries actually support their own companies

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like their own companies or evil some out who came up with that idea anyway

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those other countries work together from the wheat manufacturer to the water

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piping distributor to the fertilizer company tapping their own politico's for

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product to co-opting grinders are us when it comes time for the cattle to you

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know come home well a subsidy is essentially a negative tax the

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government is subsidizing supply which shifts the curve to the left like on

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this little graph thing here that is input suddenly got cheaper

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thank you hard-working taxpayer contributions lots of controversy

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surrounding subsidies some folks support them while others claim they unfairly [happy people dancing in front of government building]

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affect prices or give developed countries a big advantage over less [a group of unhappy people]

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developed countries that might not have the cash to help their industries

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there's a whole lot of corruption in unlevel playing fields that cloud the

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story on both ends but no matter how mad some people are about subsidies just

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remember that no one is as mad as these cows [mad uni-brow cow charges the screen]

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