Zeev, again, I am saying the preferred stock is not floorless, therefore I am saying it has a set floor where it can be converted. While I am sure that it is floorless, I don't know what that number is. I don't know whether the price is variable according to some formula based on trading and am unwilling to speculate.
As far as whether the SEC had a choice or not, not being a lawyer, I am not qualified to make that judgement. My personal opinion is that they should have had the choice and should have made it differently than they did. Maybe US law or custom prevented them from suing the real culprits in this mess and using the theory of respondeat superior they may have been forced to sue us instead.
Look at what happened in the aftermath of the start of the SEC investigation. Jon Andersen left the practice of SEC law. Bo O'Brien has not been heard of again. Yet Bill Carraway stayed at the helm and is now bringing GRNO back from the dead. Does that sound like the kind of operation the SEC claimed it is?
Bill Carraway and GRNO depended on the expertise of Gambrell & Stolz for 4 years. G&S held themselves out to be experts in SEC law and advised GRNO accordingly. By their abysmal performance, G&S demonstrated fraud in what they represented to us and, according the South Carolina law, GRNO is entitled to triple damages. GRNO has a well respected expert witness who will testify to their poor performance.
As far as the SEC is concerned, let me say how I see them from the standpoint of my experience with government.
Years ago, I used to be an engineer who designed parts for microwave electronic warfare systems that were installed in Air Force fighters and bombers. These parts were sold to Original Equipment Manufacturers who then sold their systems to the Air Force. But one job had me dealing directly with the Air Force because they wanted to replace outmoded vacuum tube technology with solid state. (Don't be shocked, traveling wave tubes have a few advantages over solid state, but not many.) What I learned from that job was that the Air Force hired their engineers directly out of college with no background in replacing tubes with solid state. These kids were responsible for spending millions in our taxes, and the Air Force expected them to learn their jobs by sending out Requests For Quotes to private industry and learning from the responses. Unfortunately, an entry level engineer is very embarrassed by his lack of expertise and is extremely reluctant to indicate it although it is impossible to hide it. I know, long ago I was one myself. What they tend to do is stubbornly stick to maintaining their mistakes because they have that power.
I think the boys at the SEC are hired directly out of law school and learn their craft as entry level lawyers. This is called "the practice of law" and these kids are practicing on us until they get good at it at which time they quit government and go into business for themselves. But in the meantime, they make serious mistakes as we can see by their suit against GRNO and Bill Carraway. They have made serious misstatements of fact which flaw the suit and indicate that they did not do a good job of investigation. I think they should be very worried about consequences when that becomes public knowledge but are unwilling to admit what they have done.
But the consequences of what the SEC and SC DHEC have done go far beyond mere damage to our net worth. Look at the latest news release and see what the Chinese are doing. This GRNO joint venture is being located in a high tech industrial park in the neighborhood of HP and Lucent. What is high tech about assembling and operating a couple plants? They will essentially run themselves using hardware and software that has already been developed. There is little to be learned by the Chinese in that way.
The following is my interpretation of what I see in the news release. I think this facility will serve as the research and development arm of Green Oasis. I think GRNO will continue to develop its technology with the purpose of developing its versatility to handle more than just crankcase oil. I think it will work on technology to handle other types of toxic hydrocarbon waste, even to the point of being able to process oils contaminated by such materials as PCBs. I think they will try to develop technology to process crude oils.
Why process crude oils when that requires a full sized oil refinery, not a tiny, specialized plant like GRNO's? Suppose there are isolated areas with pockets of crude that are easy to produce but are too small to spend the money hauling it long distances to a large refinery. If GRNO was able to process that into such products as diesel and gasoline to be sold in that same area, money can be made. This is just a guess and is only an example of why I think the Chinese intend the GRNO JV to be a full blown R&D facility. That is why I think crude is a goal of the Chinese to pursue.
Zeev, you know yourself that there is only so much knowledge that can be acquired from books, papers, classes and seminars. The kind of expertise that leads to breakthroughs which lead to future profits is not acquired passively but comes from day to day immersion in and working on the specifics of the technology. It comes from thinking about how problems can be solved, even working on them while sleeping.
Again, what are the consequences of what the SEC and SC DHEC have done? I believe they have forced out of America the future expertise that will be developed in China by the Red Chinese, not in America by Americans for America. Maybe the SEC and DHEC had no choice, but I don't see it that way and I see it as an American tragedy.
Charles |
