Partly this has to do with investor mindset. If you are thinking about investing in a company which matters more? The earnings they just reported or the earnings they will report in the future once you buy the stock?<p>The whole basis for normalizing earnings is to get to the real economic numbers you can expect a company to generate in the future. That means taking out what you believe are one-time costs, but again if you keep seeing the same adjustments every quarter, then something is up.