Thanx tchauncy -
You are always thoughtful and intelligent and reasonable.
Like you, I'm not a novice either. My family business is oil & gas. To be very plain with you, if I were to tell you the publicly traded company my family started way back in the 1920's, your jaw would drop. My particular branch of the family is full of oil & gas experts (petroleum engineers, wildcatters.. that kind of thing) who only recently sold our privately held company, lock, stock & barrel to another private company. My job for nearly 25 years was to run the computer side of the business. In particular, we represented, as professional property tax consultants, the interests of fiduciaries & property owners throughout Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida, Colorado and about two dozen other states. I personally created and managed a complex property description, tax records, and division order database management system specific to the ad valorem tax industry. And, for about 15 of those years, I also was the president of a spin off of our database records management systems that sold high end records management solutions to midsize and departmental entities, including but not limited to engineering firms, tax departments of oil companies, oil & gas trust departments, private family oil & gas trusts, professional property appraisal firms, and appraisal districts.
What we did, apart form the nuts and bolts of complex records management database systems, was we were professional negotiators, licensed by the several states and legally recognized as agents and representative before governmental tax entities for matters pertaining to the valuation of our client's oil & gas, personal, and real property. Specifically, we negotiated tax reductions on behalf of oil and gas property owners. We were professional negotiators.
That having been said, please understand me when I say this, but with all due respect, you are one of the most helpful, pleasant, honest, forthright, and reliable voices on any board here on iHub. But, and again, not wishing to offend, you are, from my point of view as a professional negotiator with over 25 years experience plying the trade of professional property tax negotiation... you are also quite adept at the art of subtly changing the subject.
With all due respect, any differences I might have with any of the particulars of any of your posts (your most recent included) are so insubstantial that they don't merit mentioning. But, it remains a fact that, in the post to which this is a reply, you very effectively changed the subject from what I posted about to what you wanted to talk about, which are not the same things.
So, now I'm going to be blunt. KING voluntarily posted that they intended to ship a rig in August to Romania. This having been done, and this having been done of their own volition, it therefore became something about which the shareholders of KING deserved a follow-up post, once the self announced August deadline had passed. PERIOD.
Your wonderful and helpful and informative posts notwithstanding, there is not one single paragraph in this one, your most recent post, that contains anything relevant to my plain contention, herewith plainly stated above. PERIOD.
In paragraph one, your introduction, there is not one word affirming the reasonableness of an expectation that, given the self imposed August deadline, a follow-up PR about the rig was deserved once the deadline had passed.
In paragraph 2, there is not one word affirming the reasonableness of an expectation that, given the self imposed August deadline, a follow-up PR about the rig was deserved once the deadline had passed.
In paragraph 3, a rhetorical question about the nature of a PR, "in all fairness to the company", is posed, and a ridiculous fictitious headline is promulgated. This is where you effect the change of subject, very deftly done, I might add. I don't intend to be contentious, but this paragraph is where you cleverly and subtly changed the subject from “what is fair and reasonable to the shareholders” to what is “in all fairness to the company”. And let me note once again that, in this paragraph, there is not one word affirming the reasonableness of an expectation that, given the self imposed August deadline, a follow-up PR about the rig was deserved once the deadline had passed.
In the 4th paragraph, there is a progression from the mere change of the subject. There is a type casting done at the end of the paragraph. A marvelous little characterizing phrase was chosen: "worthless minutia". Well done and bravo. You are impressive, but I'm not talking about "worthless minutia". Nor have I ever been. I'm talking about a deadline KING placed on themselves that they let pass and that we, as shareholders, are legitimately interested in. Its not "worthless". Its not "minutia". Its about the announced shipment of a drilling rig to a major oil & gas drilling project in Romania in August 2006 from the port of New Orleans. In prior posts, the trivializing phrase was “fluffy PRs”. Now, its progressed from merely being trivial and “fluffy” to being “worthless” and “minutia”. Again, well done and bravo. A very elegantly played card; masterful use of the passive aggressive. And, again, your paragraph 4 does not contain one word affirming the reasonableness of an expectation that, given the self imposed August deadline, a follow-up PR about the rig was deserved once the deadline had passed. I might have let you employ your passive aggressive without comment had you not stepped beyond mere trivialization to outright insulting denigration. I just can’t let you walk that one past me without shining a big bright spotlight on it. Even so, masterful use of the passive aggressive.
I hate to disrespect you by the bluntness of this post. I have spent too many years as a professional negotiator to let you change the subject on me in this manner, and get away with it. I’m interested in the value of my investment. I presume the other shareholders are as well. Until real progress is announced on the deals KING outlined in June, the value of this company is largely intangible, composed mostly of the trust the June announcements generated. By putting a voluntary date on the shipment of the rig for the Romanian project, KING gave shareholders something tangible. The rest of the stuff they announced is open ended, but they put a single, tangible object into play by their self declared August deadline. If this company is the honest group of experience oil and gas men I believe they are, they need to realize that they contribute to the erosion in value of the company when they treat shareholder desire for a PRs on a not insubstantial tangible matter that they chose to announce and on which they imposed a self declared deadline, as though the shareholders are desirous of mere hand holding. "In all fairness to the company"…. Give me a break. “In all fairness to the shareholders” is the appropriate viewpoint, in my opinion, and I think what I have said about it, though inordinately long, resonates well. That you disagree is simply a matter about which you and I are going to have to agree to disagree, unless, of course you yield, which I think you should. As to the rest of the folks who read this board, I leave it to them to decide where they stand on their own.
Good luck to you. “In all fairness to the company”? I don’t think so. “In all fairness to the shareholders”… now that’s where I stand.
Best regards,
Imperial Whazoo
AI
