I said in an earlier comment that I didn't think I was getting hung up on the name, but I had a thought that hints that maybe I am.
If it were called "slop" instead of "goodwill", I think I would be less bothered by it. don't get me wrong, it would still bother me -- and I wouldn't understand it any better -- but it would feel less like a term someone would use when trying to pull a fast one.
> It's just that accounting wants both sides of the ledger to balance
Yeah, you and a couple of other people keep saying that, but I don't really understand what that means. I mean, I know what having both sides of the ledger balance means, but this sort of example seems bizarre and extremely suspect to me. It just looks for all the world like people making stuff up.
That's OK. I can't understand everything, and this isn't something that's actually important for me to understand.