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I wonder if JRL is just a bot left here to troll you for the rest of your natural life? Hear me out. Some clever programmer puts together a "random nonsense generator". There's a list of words and phrases it pulls from including court case numbers, names of regulatory agencies, mineral claim numbers, people who have been a part of the narrative, etc. The messages are also randomized for length, and more or less drift between lower and upper case indiscriminately, intermixed with threatening and grandiose phrasing just to keep it engaging.
No one could or would ever make sense of this textual diarrhea - and maybe that's because it's just here as an experiment. The goal: it's like a weird sort of Turing test to see how long humans will engage with a nonsense generator - spending weeks, months, years, decades of their lives trying to make sense of something that has no correlation to real life and no end in sight. Ever.
Just a thought.
Lol. So ironic. You claim I'll be in legal pain for stating "Nothing this guy says ever seems to happen" Then you'll prove my point when absolutely nothing results from your declaration. Again. You've been threatening to sue people on this message board for years. And you never have. Not that anyone should be worried, given your legal track record. Your grandiose statements aren't convincing in the least - there are like half dozen regular posters to this board, and only (maybe) one of them is semi-interested in your repetitive bafflegarb.
Elvis lives. Now prove me wrong. You can't because it's nearly impossible to prove a negative. But, as with Jorge Lopehandia's other ridiculous tale, you can evaluate the truth of the claims over time. JL keeps saying that he'll be proven right - but how long has he been saying that? How many times has victory been "just around the corner"? Sure, Elvis might still be out there, but now he'd be 86 years old. How long do you wait until you call the story disproven? Another 20 years? 40 years? Or maybe it's all the way until the last fool stops listening to the story.
Still watching to see as JL moves his imaginary goalpost further down the field?
Your logic is curious. BJ and JL are two guys who have very little in the way of real-world work experience or professional credentials. They're each taking a living from this current scam, but your logic is that if they were professional scammers, they should have found a better scam.
Maybe they could be better fraudsters... but this one is doing the job. They've had hapless investors funding their livelihoods for YEARS, based on an unverifiable story told about a far-away place. Even the disclosures are very clear on how little has ever been reviewed by independent counsel.
Maybe there's a better scam out there. Maybe they're still looking to find it. But for now, they've had a pretty good run at promoting this one. Last I looked, many millions have already been burned on MSX's books.
And as one final note, you mention the Fitzgerald suit: this previous scam became BJ's livelihood for years before JL was even in the picture, proving once again that the scam itself doesn't really need to be all that good... it just needs to work long enough until the next one comes along.
And even if it were true...
(which it's not, as I just demonstrated)
How can we infer anything from a ruling that is not available for review, and appears (if verified) to be a finding of facts rather than a final verdict in the case?
It's beyond ridiculous to put this out there as if it's good news for Mountainstar. Is this just some sort of desperate attempt to distract? Behind the scenes, Brent is still accepting money. Isn't it a little hinky to accept money under the pretense that the Corporation is still in compliance with the laws that govern it?
This latest PR is demonstrably false!
According to the information disclosed by MSX, there is no current option agreement with Jorge Lopehandia. The most recent agreement extended the term of MSX's option to July of 2014 - and Mountainstar already breached the terms of that extension. Unless there's been a new agreement, how can MSX refer to JL as a "Mountainstar optioner"?
Unless JL is willing to form an upodated agreement with Mountainstar (although I don't know how binding it would be without properly elected officers), MSX needs to retract this latest PR.
I don't know what everyone is getting hung up about.
What's the big deal about a corporation holding elections for officers? It's wasteful, really. We can just keep the same guys in charge indefinitely, and do away with all this "accountability" baloney. North Korea did the same thing a long time ago, and see how stable, happy and prosperous it has made them.
Any why so worried about filing financial statements? I mean, if you can't just blindly trust the people who aren't being elected by the shareholders, then what kind of people are you?
Paid agitators... that's who! There. I've said it. The only people who would go around insisting that MSX should comply with reporting regulations are paid supporters of Barrick. After all, secrecy is to our advantage! Rehashing the legal and financial losses we've incurred would only serve to weaken our resolve... and might scare people off from writing new checks to the Supreme Leader.
And imagine if people had a chance to buy or sell shares! What a mess that would be! You can't leave an important issue like valuation up to the whims of the investors. That would be madness.
No. We're better off with a company... oh wait...am I really allowed to call it that? Umn... okay an "Entity" with no financial statements, no properly elected officers, no option agreement with a guy who has no professional qualifications, no money, no prospects for income, and no liquidity.
That sounds about right to me.
Where do you get the idea that MSX has any remaining legal recourse on Fitzgerald?
Been a while since I've checked in on this freak show (I see that JL is still shouting "I WIN!" - the man should really freshen up his material) but I've seen nothing at all on Fitzgerald. If Brent is still peddling that old con job behind the scenes, maybe he needs some new material too.
Nobody can pretend to be surprised about this. MSX barely limped out from the last CTO, and the company's financial position has only worsened in the meantime.
To be blunt, there's two kinds of fools who still have money in this:
The lesser fool has long since lowered his expectations, and if he's sore at all, it's simply because he stuck it out too long. You can put me in this group.
The greater fool is the one who's still considering reaching for his back pocket to help poor Brent get out from this bad scrape.
Personally, I wouldn't read too much into an odd $6000 day of trading on a stock which routinely reports little or zero volume in a day.
The big lie is that "someone knows something" that we don't. Stock scammers love to push a stock with this kind of implied knowledge. Nothing can be counted on until it's reported, and MSX is reporting nothing of value. If you read the most recent set of financials (going way back to March now!), the story is dismal.
Even the hype is weak: a mine that's been mothballed, lawsuits without conclusion, an option agreement that barely exists (if at all).
All of this is true and reported. The line that someone has "inside" information is the one you should treat with suspicion.
It's ironic that Jorge Lopehandia repeatedly points out delays related to ABX as "proof" of fraud, while the entire history of his deal with MSX has been nothing but a string of delays. Despite his proclamations, going back years now, that victory is imminent, there's no sign of it. Nothing but missed deadlines, dropped lawsuits, retracted PRs, non-verdicts, re-warmed option agreements, late or non-existent financials... in other words: hot air!
Remember the CTO from last year. It was brought on by MSX's failure to file financial statements. MSX is in that same position today. What's more, MSX has failed to hold an AGM this year. How's that for shareholder accountability?
MSX has not announced an extension to the option agreement, due 10 days ago. So that means there's no agreement, right? When/if MSX posts a monthly progress report to CNSX, will Brent truthfully represent that there is no agreement? Or will he cobble together some last-minute 14 or 30 day extension again? Or, as he's done on the Fitzgerald suit, will he simply pretend that there's something happening?
A CTO seems inevitable, and I doubt that Brent has any intention of resurrecting this one again. Shareholders: I'd suggest that this is a good time for an exit... even pennies on the dollar is better than zero.
Stave Davis = someone with a track record for losing court cases and money in a big way.
Why would you care? Normally, you wouldn't, and we could leave it at that.
If, however, you were looking to evaluate MSX as a possible investment, you might weigh the fact that Brent Johnson and co. had the poor judgement to get into bed with Steve Davis publicly and (later) behind the scenes. You might also give some thought to his pre-existing relationship with Jorge Lopehandia.
The kind of conspiracy-fueled rhetoric that swirls around these two fellas is astounding. Two peas in a pod, really.
I wouldn't even attempt to sum up the whole of Mr. Davis' involvement in MSX, except to say that it's probably enough to preclude the involvement of any serious money.
I'm not sure how much it matters, though. There's no Annual Financial Statement. There's no option agreement with JL. There's no money to pay for the agreement, even if it were renegotiated. There's no clear cut answer about what land JL even claims to own rights to, and no geological reporting to indicate the presence of gold. There's no court ruling in Chile. Is there even a current case? There's nothing left but to admit defeat in the Fitzgerald suit. There's nothing in Alaska - full stop.
After a long period of hype, all that's left is denial. No one wants to admit that this thing is worthless, but no one can sell shares in a major quantity without proving how worthless it is.
I have to agree: there's nothing to see here.
5 days until what?
Another deadline passes for MSX to catch up agreed payments to Mr. Lopehandia. Then what? Another artificial deadline that neither party expects will be met? Or does JL finally do what BJ has so masterfully positioned him to do: proclaim that MSX has breached the agreement and walk away with the millions he's taken from MSX investors?
Any bets?
Be realistic! "When you know you're right" doesn't describe MSX vs. Ransport or Fitzgerald at all. Every court that has touched this, in Canada or the US, has ruled squarely against MSX. What's most telling, I think, is that MSX's leadership and lawyers flopped around so much on their legal arguments. It's clear that the only principle involved is something along the lines of "Hey... those guys seem to have money. I want some too!"
MSX was right? Which time?
When they said that Fitzgerald was entitled to the money, but had a duty to share it with MSX? Or the time they argued that Fitzgerald was never entitled to the money, and it should have gone to Tronox? Or the time that they backed Steve Davis' falsified agreement from long before anything was ever discovered?
There may be some remaining questions on Chile, but if anyone is still clinging to Brent's story about Fitzgerald/Ranspot, it's clear that it's not because of that you know is right, but rather because of something you really, really WANT to believe.
With the deadline for MSX holding an AGM slipping away, I did a bit of light reading on what the consequences could be for a company that fails to hold its AGM. The answer is this: a lot of serious crap could come from it.
There could definitely be large fines, which MSX is in no position to pay, but there could also be difficulties in meeting other regulatory requirements... and I don't have to remind shareholders how that's played out in the past.
Seriously now, if anyone reading this board is considering opening your wallet for Brent Johnson (I hear he can be quite convincing behind the scenes) DON'T. Hold onto your money. The failure of this board to hold the AGM makes any financial support of MSX very risky indeed.
Translate this announcement anyone?
Why would MSX need to pay anyone a "finder's fee" to find its own creditors? With the company missing its required AGM, and the expiry of the agreement with JL, is this just Brent Johnson reshuffling the cards a bit before the whole thing slips under water? Please, though, someone assure me that BJ can't pay himself a finders fee for this slight of hand.
I sympathize. I'm sure everyone would like to see a positive PR - but who would believe it? Management can't even meet the bare minimums on regulatory requirements (AGM) and disclosure (where's the Monthly Progress Report on CNSX?). Every deadline has passed, and the mounting failures of Brent Johnson go without explanation.
The company has, to my knowledge, missed all the deadlines in their agreement with JL. The most recent ones would have passed within the last few days. MSX has breeched the agreement, and there's been no news of a successful renegotiation. So JL can just walk away with the millions of $ he's already spent, no?
As far as shareholders know there is currently no option agreement. Now where'd I put that panic button? Without an option agreement with JL, what does MSX have on the books? Debt, and no way to pay it. The most recent financials show MSX underwater even on its current accounts.
And while I'm going off... I find MSX's explanation of its current lawsuits amusingly vague.
Regarding Fitzgerald: "The Company and its attorneys have determined what the next step will be." Okay. And any chance these "next steps" include the application of topical pain relief because of the spanking MSX has taken? C'mon. Who does Brent think he's kidding by dangling some mysterious "next step" to this failed string of lawsuits?
Regarding Mrs. Jackholm: "The Company strongly believes that the matter will be settled to the satisfaction of Mrs. Jackholm and the shareholders of the Company." Really? Because what she wants is money, and MSX doesn't have any to give her. Maybe you have a different idea of what "satisfaction" means, but I doubt that you dragging you heels for months on end while she loses her properties ranks as one of Mrs. Jackholm's more satisfactory outcomes.
I really don't know how Mr. Johnson looks himself in the mirror.
Like it or not, I think this is the future of the Pascua Lama project. ABX, having publicly placed this expensive mistake on ice, will be slapped around by regulatory agencies in Chile for good measure. JL's lawyers will make a little noise in the newspapers now and again, so long as they continue to get paid. None of it amounts to much except for overwhelming financial risk from every side.
Not much to attract investors with.
But is MSX even trying anymore? Really?
When the company goes into a CTO for the course of several months, never offering a proper explanation to investors... when the company's financial statements show that they can't meet their obligations to creditors... when the company has cancelled the AGM, leaving itself at risk of other regulatory penalties... how could anyone argue that Brent Johnson is capable or even working towards keeping MSX in business?
Is another CTO on the way? Or a delisting?
I'm concerned that Brent and co. are not taking their statutory obligations very seriously. Which sucks, because this lack of compliance has already bit them in the butt more than once.
The AGM is my current concern. My reading the of the Act is that MSX needs to have an AGM very year, and in the absence of some other procedural hoops, it should be within 15 months of that previous AGM. That would make it May 1 at the latest, no?
MSX also is required, I think, to send out notice at least 14 days prior to the AGM.
So if I understand this right, Brent is down to the wire (again) on compliance with the law, and if we don't hear about a new date for the AGM within the next 9 days or so, MSX could be in some (more) serious kaka.
Hmmm... just a thought, Brent... maybe running a business just isn't your thing.
The fact that Mr. Davis has turned against Brent Johnson is neither surprising nor alarming. The fact that the AGM was cancelled, however...
It's nothing new to hear MSX or JL declare victory... but have they ever been able to produce the transcript or ruling? I don't think so.
I've never seen anything credible to indicate the millions of dollars spent on lawsuits has benefited MSX at all.
Anyone know where I can find this transcript? I didn't see it posted here, and to be honest, I kinda lumped this claim in with all of JL's other unsubstantiated pronouncements of utter victory.
If I missed it, my bad. I will say this, tho... there's enough confusion around the issue of titles and the overlapping boundaries of each party's claims that prudent investors will want MSX to prove their own gold before investing in a big way. Which brings us back to: lawsuits = no value.
Just sayin'... MSX should stop waiting for the wheels to fall of off Barrick's project. It's happened already, and it didn't do anything to help MSX. If JL has something to mine, Mr. Johnson needs to prove it to the world - or this remains some oddball conspiracy play.
Can you point me in the direction of this ruling/admission? I've heard JL say this kind of thing before, but I never saw anything to back it up.
If your point is that we know very little, I agree. We can all see that Barrick has made a royal mess out of their mining project, and if I were a Barrick shareholder, I'd be more than a little annoyed by the outcome. What bearing that has on MSX, I'm not certain. Mr. Lopehandia claims, and is supported by his own mining expert, that Barrick was working on an entirely different physical site than JL lays claim to. So why stay so hung-up on Barrick? Why not do the reasonable thing, and prove the gold that's on JL's site?
You ask the motive of posters who aren't exactly happy with the current direction (who is?) ... for me, personally, the motive is this: I'd like to point towards a change in strategy. I don't think that any value has ever been added to MSX through lawsuits. Brent got paid. Lawyers got paid. Shareholders got no value.
Why not try mining?
I don't disagree, Quer, but answer me this: what incentive does Mr. Johnson or the BOD have to heed existing shareholder demands? The only people who have any real leverage are those who are writing cheques for money he hasn't spent already.
He has been handed another $450,000 as I read the last PR. That should keep his salary paid for a while. If he can keep people writing cheques without any kind of changes on his part, what's his incentive to listen to us?
Brent was incredibly remiss in his duties from the outset. He began giving Mr. Lopehandia money with substantially no due diligience and no agreement. Even when regulators forced him to put the deal in writing, Brent did nothing to safeguard shareholder assets with collateral or by keeping the money in trust.
The initial provision that JL provide clean title, or return the money was pure fantasy. Mr. Lopehandia had previously avoided paying a court-awarded judgement to Barrick by claiming financial hardship... and Brent knew this. How would he have expected JL to return millions if he failed in Chile?
Of course, Brent later removed that fantasy provision from the agreement anyhow. As it stands, Brent has placed MSX in breech of a contract he negotiated and has left MSX in no position to recover any money. It's so clearly damaging to MSX shareholder interests, one has to wonder if he did it on purpose. How's that for fiduciary duty?
Not so sound childish, but I hafta say: my supposition isn't so silly, but yours is!
Who the heck am I supposed to be scaring? There's no way to invest, so no such thing as a potential investor. Those who are invested have no way to sell, so why what possible motive would I have to spook anyone? This is a discussion forum, Rover, and this is a discussion. Maybe it makes me feel better to commiserate with others who may feel as I do, so in that way, I am pretty transparent... but not in the way you imply.
You say that BJ and JL are not served by MSX quietly disappearing... but that's just not true. JL has been handed somewhere around 5 million dollars. The way things are going, MSX is in breech of contract, and he walks away with no obligation. He has every reason to keep his lips tight and wait for everyone to turn their attention elsewhere.
Brent has similarly accepted millions in compensation, but in my opinion, he's performed his duties with such incompetence that he's liable to have shareholders looking at legal action. A long, quiet slide into obscurity may buy him time if nothing else. The longer period investors have to "cool off" and accept their losses, the less likely they are to trouble him.
And really, if he intended to carry on with MSX, I can't see him leaving shareholders for this long without any answers. The last set of financials show MSX as on the brink of insolvency.
So am I really "silly" to speculate on the end of MSX? I don't think so.
I guess Mr. Johnson and Mr. Lopehandia would be happy to see investors slowly lose interest as MSX simply fades away - a cowardly end for a venture these guys once touted with such drama.
For investors, however, I think there is an appetite for a definitive end point. So I poll this group: at what point, and under what conditions would you consider MSX dead?
examples:
If Brent fails to file an Interim Financial Report by the end of Februrary?
If Brent fails to file the next set of Audited Financial Statements by August?
If the next AGM doesn't happen by ???
Or do we each wait for the knock on our front door(s), to find that the fat lady (Viking helmet and all) has come personally to sing the end of MSX?
It seems to me that maybe Brent Johnson's definition of victory has undergone some downward revision. He may have started out with the goal of suing Fitzgerald into submission. After being defeated in every jurisdiction possible, it looks like he's content to just not admit it was a waste of time. He may have started with the idea of defeating Barrick and coming out of it as a millionaire. Now, he's probably just happy for every day he doesn't have to tell his wife he can't pay the mortgage.
Where does he go from here? Revise those definitions, Brent. It may be a victory if you can keep yourself out of jain, and if you can land a job stocking shelves at night in a grocery store.
Any reason to think we will?
Another question... will Brent bother to repost the same old monthly progress report on CNSX this week?
The case against Fitzgerald = loss.
I just read a ridiculous post by Steve Davis, who sometimes pretends not to be seeking a relationship with MSX, but makes a liar of himself by showing up again and again to tout MSX's potential involvement in his Fitzgerald/Ranspot racket.
His latest tack may be the most ludicrous of all time. Follow this horrifying logic: 20 or 21 million dollars has been raised and lost by Brent Johnson. Only 5 million has been spent on Lopehandia. So, goes his warped logic, 15 or 16 million has been put into Fitzgerald litigation, making it the more important project.
The premise is so foolish, and the argument's motives so transparent, that it's hard to know where to begin.
First off, he's simply wrong. In assigning 15 million to Fitzgerald, Davis is ignoring Montana and Alaska, and MSX's direct losses in those projects. He's ignoring operating expenses... some large portion of the 15 million has been recorded on the financials as accounting fees, office expenses, management fees, shareholder relations, debt servicing... the list is long, and all reported on in the annual reports. These more general expenses should properly be divided between all of the company's projects, including Alaska, Montana and Chile.
Secondly, he argues that the Fitzgerald case is just now being addressed in US courts. LOLOLOLOL. MSX has heard the answer on Fitzgerald loud and clear in courts ranging from the Supreme Court of Canada, to Nevada, Washington and Arizona. MSX has lost every time.
Every time. Every appeal of every time. MSX has been heard by the courts, and has lost again and again.
This is not a current concern of MSX. MSX has announced no involvement in current US litigation on anything related to Fitzgerald, despite many opportunities to do so. Davis has his own wingnut litigation waiting to be dismissed or withdrawn, and even by his own words, MSX has nothing to do with it.
Thirdly, I'll make the argument of the sunken cost fallacy. Even if I grant Mr. Davis the premise that expenditures on Fitzgerald exceed those on Lopehandia, that doesn't make it rational to throw good money after bad. The slot machine you've been working all night is not bound to pay off big. We've heard the answer on this litigation already, loud and clear. It's time to move on.
Mr. Davis can keep pushing his lies in an attempt to redirect MSX resources (such as they are) towards his lost causes, but I don't think this lame argument will convince anyone.
I predict the future of MSX as a slow fade. For a while, Brent Johnson will post the same old "Progress Report" on CNSX each month. The lawyers will quietly stop pleading all cases as the money dries up. The creditors will eventually write down money owed by MSX as uncollectable. Mr. Lopehandia keep his mouth shut, and walk away cleanly from any obligation to the shareholders who have fronted him millions. As the accounts are pretty much bare, I don't suspect anyone will sue anyone - a very curious and ironic end for a company that has been fueled by lawsuits from the earliest days of Brent's tenure.
Maybe even Steve Davis will lose interest. Heck, there has to be a silver lining in here somewhere.
From the December Monthly Progress Report:
"The Company borrowed an additional sum of $75,890. These funds will be repaid or converted into units at $0.16 per share relating to the $150,000 financing as announced on September 5, 2013. This financing will be closed once the Company has resumed trading."
Granted, it's hard to know from this statement exactly when the money landed in MSX's accounts, but it's also clear from every recent release that repayments to company loans and payments to JL on the option agreement have stopped. However, I'll bet there's one guy who's still getting paid.
$75,000 may be a small number compared to what he's had to play with before, but it might make his mortgage payments for a while.
I share your concerns, but I don't think there's much hidden in Brent Johnson's motives. It seems pretty straight up to me. He's after money.
There's nothing wrong with that. Most of us are motivated by it, one way or another.
A key distinction as far as I'm concerned is this one: you can earn money with the shareholders, or you can earn money from the shareholders. Since he's had zero success on the first, I think he's flat-out chosen the second.
There's a figurative set of scales that Brent is using to guide his actions. On the left side, he has a pile of money representing how much salary, fees, etc. he thinks he can draw from MSX before bankruptcy. On the right side, he has a pile representing what he thinks he can earn as a major shareholder if he gets out of the way and lets someone else lead the company. It should scare the hell out of everyone who's invested that Brent, with access to more information than any of us, judges the left side as more lucrative.
Mainland, I'd urge you to consider your sources, and place your frustration where it belongs: on Brent Johnson.
He has left you grasping at rumors, gossip, conspiracy theories, accusations, innuendo and guesswork. Has Mr. Scrannage done something to hold up trading? I don't know, actually. It could be he's just a direction to point fingers. And it bears remembering that Mr. Scrannage came into the BOD as a major shareholder who was hand-picked by Mr. Johnson. If he now can't bring himself to support Brent's leadership, what does it say?
You say that advocates of change have "no freeking idea", but that assumes that you do. Unfortunately, if you're backing that assumption with research into Steve Davis-esque conspiracy theories, then I don't believe you know any better.
Sure... you can let the imagination run wild this this "mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma" stuff , but if you can't count on MSX's management for boring stuff like basic management skills and sound strategy, you'll never get past the first layer. As to whether this kind of "knowledge" has value, the only honest answer is: yes - I'd peg it at negative $20 million so far.
Skipping past the airy-faery conspiracy stuff, Brent Johnson accepted real-world money from people who have the right to expect competent management. Unfortunately, Brent can't deliver on that expectation. If he cared for anything but his own salary, I think he would step aside to give the company a chance.
It was the story, and I have no problem with that. What better way to attract investment than to pitch a story?
At some point, however, it has to get past that.
Using your signature movie terminology: every movie starts with a story idea, but not every story idea ends with a movie. The deciding factor, more often than not, has nothing to do with the quality of the story, but with the skills and resources of the people attached to the project. By many accounts, "Avatar" was not a spectacular or very original storyline... but it had a major advantage: a guy who had the skills and resources to get it made.
The MSX movie project is about to be killed.
So... replace the writer/director/producer to get the project done. Give Brent a spot in the credits and a cut of the proceeds (which he already will have because of his ownership stake). In the end, it's the best thing for both the investors and for Brent.
I see that Mr. Davis has done a recent rant about MSX's lawyers as well, so I'm reading between the li(n)es and guessing that this is Brent's current messaging: don't blame me, blame the lawyers.
It doesn't wash. Mr. Johnson has had a single solution to every problem so far: file a lawsuit. It's like Maslow's hammer. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Except now Brent is complaining "damned hammer does a poor job on windows".
Pursuing cases when they're not winnable has been a result of Mr. Johnson's choices. Usually, a lawyer will give you a pretty brutal assessment of your chances of winning, but if you want to pay them to file motions and charges, they won't turn down the money.
Honestly Tibby, you're a guy who's followed the Fitgerald saga way back. It should tweak you that Brent has flopped around on his legal position a number of times - about whether Fitzgerald should ever have been entitled to collect royalties, and who he should have shared them with. It means that his position was not based in fact or principle, but rather in an appetite for something just outside his reach.
There are some here who still want to give Mr. Johnson the benefit of the doubt - that he had honest intention, but just didn't have the ability to get the job done. I say that at this point, the argument is moot. Whether he's a good guy with poor skills, or a bad guy with poor skills, he is now putting the whole company at risk in order to stay in control.