vonitsa...
This post is one of the best posts (besides Ron9 and a few others who are actually at the site and trying to give us some actual information) I've seen on this board...
Gordon does make some good points....people should be wary...why?...because we don't know enough...
The company is in the starting gate and all of us who are excited about USSE's potential and have invested want to see it get off the ground (and Z...for longer we hope than Orville and Wilbur's first journey which, if I remember, was for less than 1 minute) are gambling....
And frankly, it's the same gambling that Enron investors, WorldCom investors and others along the way have done even when those companies were on the DOW and NAZ reporting the hell out of their numbers...and projecting the sky was the limit...
Gordon...every time you put your money down in the stock market, it's a huge risk...look at companies like Lucent, Sun Microsystems, Covad Communications, Sunbeam, hell even Krispy Kreme to name a few...these were once high-fliers too...even though Lucent survives via merger, Sun Micro survives but is still below $10/share, blah, blah, blah, the list goes on of people who took a shot on a company much further along than USSE who lost a lot of people a lot of money on half-baked accounting schemes, poor management, poor cost containment, competitors building a better mousetrap, failure to understand their market and how it was changing, failure to properly project (or project at all), etc.
There are only two things that matter here in my opinion...
The first?...is this a scam?...somebody on this board made a reference to "what is so bad about taking things on faith?"...the only thing wrong with taking things on faith is if your trust is betrayed...those of us who have invested our hard-earned money on this concept will understand (even with our disappointment) if the company cannot execute and become successful, but by investing we are implicitly giving our trust that these people (John Rivera, et al) are honorable and will do everything they can to not mislead or deceive us (i.e. calculations, mergers, stock dividends, revenue projections)..for that, I have no tolerance...Like Vegas, I want at least fair play...
Surely, there is no one on this board naive enough to believe that anyone...and I mean anyone...can betray our trust...family members and friends do...so can executives of companies, both big and small...
Toward that end, right now, based on gut instinct, the WSR report (which unfortunately was paid for by USSE...a third party independent report would be much more reliable though I found the conservative tack taken in that report to be somewhat encouraging) and some of the posts here, I am taking it on faith that John Rivera and his crew are on to something big and are trying honorably to make it happen...the same way I would take it on faith if I invested my money in GE or Exxon or any other company...(and in those cases, I am not sure either whether management is acting honorably or not)...
What makes USSE less palatable is GE, Exxon and their ilk are covered extensively and have been around for years...but, this is the price we pay as investors in fledgling technology...let's face it, Big Oil has been entrenched for years...they're not going to take this lying down...
The second most important thing...can this company execute its strategy?...I know Rome wasn't built in a day, but I am concerned that the Vidalia project seems to be more foot-dragging (on Vidalia's part) than likelihood...
As I have read it, power generation is the USSE/SSTP's first and foremost strategy to get this product to market...and Vidalia was highly touted (even in USSE's video demonstration from Oct06)...Now, I have read quotes from Mayor Copeland in Vidalia that make it seem like they have either raised the bar or are backing away...
And with no other news that USSE/SSTP have landed a contract with Vidalia or anyone else, it is concerning...Also concerning is that while the company has touted building 200 reactors (plus 75 for producing ethanol) by year-end (this from Redwood Consultants), it seems the Natchez facility needs to be "retrofitted" in some manner to support these reactors...
While some here could argue that USSE is taking its time to do things right, and I'm all for that, each time the company or its representatives make statements, we, as investors, would like to see them come to fruition...it gives us more faith in management that what they say they will do, they do...
Some of the posts here leave something to be desired...the ones that seem to imply they know more about who/when the company is going to get a contract...please don't do that....if you've got something factual, please enlighten us...good or bad...what I think is useless to investors anywhere is baseless cheerleading or bashing...let's stick to the Ron9 "I have been to the mountaintop" posts...at least that gives me some confidence that real people are down there with real equipment and working on making this thing happen...
Now, before you all start hitting the ignore button or begging the moderator to blast me into outer space, I'm long USSE...and have got my fingers crossed that I haven't misplaced my faith...