Jackson Jambalaya

When politicians (mostly lawyers) take on the job of determining funding for new industry it is doomed from the start. When will we wake up and depend on successful business men and women to make decisions concerning public and/or private funding for new business ventures? Politicians have no clue and take no responsibility for decisions about which they know nothing!!!,

Maybe we can use that facility for a beef processing plant.

When good men take chances, dice get rolled ans sometimes shit happens.

Or, we could sit on our thumbs and wait for a gubment check to float our state. Wait, gubment checks already float this state.

(I got a damned cardboard box for a robot proof - WTF?)

I want the Gov'Ment to make my business decisions.

MOST of the Gov'Ment decision makers HAVE NEVER MADE A PAYROLL and do not have a clue how to run a business, much less determine which START UP BUSINESS to put OUR MONEY in.

Sometimes You Lose has a point, insomuch as the dice got rolled and it came up snake eyes. But, to take this analogy a little farther, neither the legislature, the state executives, nor most of the economic developers seemed to know what game they were playing when it came to KiOR. I remain convinced that few, if any, of the legislators actually understood what would (theoretically) be produced by the KiOR facilities (yes, facilities...they were supposed to build several), nor do I think that then-Gov. Barbour and the MDA did a good job of due diligence from a scientific standpoint. Word was that they sent some lawyers out to look at the facility in Texas, as opposed to, ya know, scientists.

As I am constantly reminded, Mississippi is a poor state. As such, it would behoove us not to invest a lot of money in glorified science projects, even if they do have the backing of big-name venture capitalists.

Card carrying Republican here, but I'd be really intrigued to know whos plams got greased in this fiasco....

Another Haley Barbour debacle. Almost 50% bigger fia$co than the beef plant AND the GOP media, except Kingfish, is SILENT.

6:25
When self-congratulatory politicians roll the dice WITH OTHER PEOPLES MONEY and shit happens, nothing is lost by said politician. Then they get to sit around and harumph that "at least they "tried" to do something" and all those ungrateful little people need to STF up. What a load of horseshit.

If the decision makers think funding a start up business, then they need to PERSONALLY GUARANTEE the payments, then they will think twice.

So, let me understand. The alternative is to appoint some of you armchair speculators and send you to an industrial development seminar, rent you a car and turn you loose?

Industrial development projects are occuring on a monthly basis around the state to one degree or another. And they have occurred for decades. Most of you have zero clue as to what goes on behind the scenes to court business and develop these projects. And I'm not talking about these huge plans that later go bust. Could be a location involving twelve imployees or one involving three thousand.

How many automotive experts did we need to court Nissan and Toyota? How many warehousing experts were needed to develop the Levi's facility that's been in place for thirty plus years? None.

It's become the reaction-de-jour to blame Barbour for everything about Mississippi that displeases you. But, ain't it easy to sit back in your chair, sipping an evening nightcap and opine about things you don't know jack-shit about.

If the Nissan plant were to fold next month, you jackasses would bleat: "Damn! What a dumbass idea. Those behind the scenes developers were such an idiots to think this would work."

There will always be a cadre of negative-heel-nippers sitting alongside the road like buzzards waiting for something to fail so they can peck at the guts and strut.

I have applied to the MDA for a grant (not a loan) for a plant that will employ several hundred. It's a tinfoil hat manufacturing plant. Tinfoil hats are in great demand and that demand is going increase according to a recent study. Mississippi can be on the cutting edge if we roll up our sleeves and build an inventory and get ahead of the curve. I'm willing to locate anywhere local officials are willing to kick in with tax breaks, etc.

Riiight, Sometimes you're a loser.
Just like there will always be a group of people that want all of us heel-nippers to put up the money so geniuses like you can do something. Please, enlighten us poor dolts about the governmental chit that was plopped down for the Levi plant. As far as Barbour is concerned, Kior = Beef Plant times 100. If McCoy was an asshole, that Barbour, well maybe you can do the math.

-Company needs our tax payer money to fund terrible idea that cant get enough private funding.
-Company pays lobbyist a truck load of money.
-Lobbyist buys new beach house in Watercolor
-Lobbyist secures tax payer money from politician he paid for thru his PAC.
-project approved and our money starts flowing.
-All the lobbyist buddies start getting rewarded
-Got a multi million dollar deal?.. will need a banker
-Need a lawyer
-Need insurance
-Need a good construction company etc etc.
-Everybody is making money of this deal
-Wood chips don't make fuel profitably and deal tanks
-Lobbyist, politicians and all his business buddies take zero loss
-Lobbyist will raise more money for PAC from his business buddies that made money on last deal so lobbyist can get said politician elected and be ready for next opportunity.
-move on to next deal.
Believe me when I say this ...no establishment politician or his lobbyist puppeteer wants a small government. They just want a government that pays for its projects and makes them money
Oh yeah
-politician retires abruptly to become a lobbyist

-politician retires abruptly to become a lobbyist

And spend more time with the family.

I spoke with a friend about processed biomass plants and why exactly it is that they are all going broke.
Here is what he said in response to the question," what are the contributing factors for these plants going broke."

"The cost of wood fractionalization (chipping/grinding/regrinding) and redundant handling, combined with fire risk from composting and moisture control triples the cost at a minimum. Then the use of steam turbines with turbine blade erosion and pipe corrosion from caustic acid creates massive O&M costs. It also requires 24/7 licensed high dollar boiler engineer and all the risks of even having a boiler to begin with."

I love government assistance (your taxes at work). Government assistance Keeps the inner city from riots, rebellions, and revolutions. Without govt. assistance to poor peoples, business, vets, seniors we would NOT BE the united states anymore. If we ever was. Rock on Govt!

10:48 I get your joke, even if 10:57 is clueless.

To save on shipping to the end users you might locate the manufacturing plant in Jones County.

Like clockwork Haley's cult of butt-chippers shows up to forgive the ol' Pardoner of his sins and redirect negative commentary away from the role his royal highness played to flimflam more tax dollars out of Mississippi in the name of 'economic development' and on-paper-only 'jobs'.

The butt-chippers want you to hold anyone (and everyone) else accountable Mississippi when these Barbour boondoggles go fat belly up but don't any of you laymen dare place one iota of the blame at the feet of Big Boss Haley.

Just a thought, when a business says they want to process culled cattle, ask where they are going now and check up on it. Wood chips--give me a break. I used to think some people were smarter than me when what they proposed made no sense. I now understand they are just shuckin and jivin to get money...

Haley is smarter than you 6:38 PM. He's the smartest person in Mississippi.

MDA is rife with political appointments with no respect to qualification or experience, bureaucratic buffoonery and delusions of grandeur. "Playing office" is what I call it. Its current leadership is perhaps the worst I have witnessed without respect to democratic or republican administrations. It's "director," a fluffy former chamber of commerce ribbon-cutter from Florida, doesn't direct anything, bus is instead directed by his supposed subordinates as they are more politically connected than he. And, don't ever expect MDA projects to be reconciled with good, long-term business principles. Its leadership is there to build their resume, and move on to bigger jobs. Strictly a short term metric with respect to project cost/benefit assessments. Doubt it? Then I leave you with two items: employment in Mississippi now at nearly 8 percent, the highest in the nation. And, the fact that MDA has issued it's own MDA stamped cufflinks.

Levi benefitted from ten years of local and state tax abatements. That's the only money you typically SEE in most developments until you consider the costs of land development (and purchase), infrastructure such as rail and road, even port dredging and runway building. Where do you armchair goobs think that money comes from?

The gamble is that it will succeed and the long term salaries and spinoff jobs will more than make it up over time.

If not for this type of activity, the entire state would resemble the Mississippi Delta and you'd all be throwing newspapers at 4 a.m.

Port dredging: paid by the taxpayer;

Infrastructure: in most cases paid for by the taxpayer;

Runway building: paid for by the taxpayer (ever heard of the federal AIP program?)

Road building, obviously usually paid by the taxpayer;

Let's just say I'm not exactly an armchair commentator or "goob" but pretty familiar with MDA's interworking. I'll leave it at that.

Don't disagree at all with the need for incentives, but good "gambles" are based on basic, sound business assumptions.

I'm saying that, without respect to any particular project, don't expect your MDA to make these judgments or to enforce them. Worse yet, don't expect MDA to have the insight and political fortitude to adjust those decisions if needed. That'll be somebody else's problem down the road, when they're gone.

Trust me. Our MDA is first and foremost a training mechanism for those therein rather than an entity looking out for the long term interest of Mississippi's taxpayers and their gambles/investments.

8:53; you unwittingly just proved my point. You were earlier bitching about the expenditure of public funds. By my questions, I forced you to admit that every project involves the expenditure of public funds; and, many of those expenditures are typically under the public radar, such as those included in my questions which you admitted to in your answers.

Industrial recruitment, as you seem to know, always involves the expenditure of public funds at one level or another. Sometimes millions, sometimes lunch on an a government expense account.

Congratulations on casting aspersions on the past twelve governors and their industrial development and business recruitment chiefs. Maybe you should have submitted your application instead of sitting at a calculator chirping about outcomes.

Maybe I need to be clearer. My point deals not with the expenditure of public funds to incent development, but the fact that I know and have lived the fact that MDA has no real metric to gauge whether these projects are good investments long term, and could care less. I, you are quite right, could care less about the last twelve directors of MDA. The fact remains that last year we had the third highest unemployment in the nation, this year we've advanced to the highest. Yet, to hear the MDA propaganda, everything is just great, and a bounty of jobs are just around the corner. I make absolutely no apologies on "casting aspersions" on MDA. Let's see how chatty you are if KIOR goes under, like Tem-Tek, Handy Hardware etc.. Do we really want to live in a state that has to incent every investment blindly? Almost 25 percent of Mississippi's workforce work for the government. Maybe its time we invest/gamble a little smarter with people who actually know business guiding the way instead of professional party planners and lunch buyers. Hope you ordered your MDA cufflinks. I hear they have a limited supply.

Mississippi does not now nor has it EVER had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Where the hell did you get that? I know....You fabricated it. And while you sit there in your velvet recliner insulting me, you can make up more shit to publish here on this blog.

Errr. Try something called Google "you crapped out." Then, you'll learn about another something you've probably never heard of called the Associated Press. And also, look at the Governor's Neshoba County Fair speech where he was trying to explain Mississippi's highest unemployment registering.
Mississippi has the nation's highest unemployment rate at 8 percent Even our Governor had to deal with that fact. An excerpt from the Clarion Ledger article, followed by an AP Story. Shall I go on?

"....But the governor admitted that the June unemployment rate of 7.9 was disappointing. The 7.9 rate is the highest in the country. Nevertheless, Bryant reiterated the goal he announced at the fair last year of getting the unemployment rate to 7.5 percent...."


Print By The Associated Press
on July 18, 2014 at 11:53 AM, updated July 18, 2014 at 11:58 AM


(File photo)

JACKSON, Mississippi -- Mississippi registered the worst jobless rate in the nation in June, as unemployment rose in the state while improving elsewhere.

The jobless rate rose to 7.9 percent in June as the number of jobless Mississippians rose back above 100,000.

A separate survey shows employer payrolls dipped slightly.

Both sets of figures -- adjusted to cancel out seasonal changes -- were released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department.

Mississippi's unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in May, while it was 8.7 percent in June 2013.

Rhode Island also had a 7.9 percent jobless rate, but its rate was slightly lower than Mississippi when calculations extend past one decimal place.

The report found 100,400 Mississippians were unemployed in June, up more than 2,000 from May but down from 112,000 in June 2013.

Unemployment rates dropped in 22 U.S. states last month and stayed the same in 14, as the nation at large posted a fifth straight month of solid hiring.

The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates rose in 14 states. Meanwhile, employers added jobs in 33 states and cut back in 17.

The biggest drop in the unemployment rate occurred in Illinois, where it fell to 7.1 percent from 7.5 percent. The state's rate has fallen by 0.8 percentage points in the past two months, partly because more people have given up searching for work.

Stronger hiring has helped lower unemployment in many parts of the country. Nationwide, employers added 288,000 positions last month, capping the healthiest stretch of job gains in 15 years. The robust increases have helped cut the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest in nearly six years.

The largest job gains, as a percentage of the workforce, occurred in Indiana, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Hiring rose 0.6 percent last month in each state. The biggest job losses were in Alaska, where employment fell 1.7 percent, and West Virginia, where it dropped 1.2 percent.

Crapped out's last submission failed to make it through the radar for some reason.

This is a welfare state, dependent on federal transfer payments and federal government largess. There are arguably more folk per capita in this state than any other reliant on welfare, disability, medicaid, crazy payments and unemployment fraud.

It's long been the plan of Bennie and now is the plan of Barrack.

KIOR 8K filed Sep 5 2014


Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.

(a)

On August 31, 2014, Paul O’Connor, a member of the board of directors (the “Board”) of KiOR, Inc. (the “Company”) delivered a letter of resignation to the Company (the “Resignation Letter”) resigning from the Board, effective immediately. Mr. O’Connor delivered the Resignation Letter following a discussion with two members of the Board who, at the direction of the full Board, requested that Mr. O’Connor resign. The circumstances underlying the Board’s request that Mr. O’Connor resign are described in further detail below. At the time of his resignation, Mr. O’Connor did not serve on any committees of the Board.

Prior to Mr. O’Connor’s resignation, the Board asked the Company’s outside counsel to review Mr. O’Connor’s conduct (the “Outside Counsel Review”). The matters reviewed by counsel in connection with the Outside Counsel Review included (i) an instance in which Mr. O’Connor withheld a third party technology report, paid for by the Company, from the Board and management, (ii) an instance of unauthorized communications with persons during the course of the Outside Counsel Review and (iii) the possibility that Mr. O’Connor failed to comply with the Company’s insider trading policy.

The Board (other than Mr. O’Connor) met to discuss the results of the Outside Counsel Review and, pursuant to that discussion, unanimously agreed to ask Mr. O’Connor to resign from the Board.

In his Resignation Letter, Mr. O’Connor outlines a number of matters, unrelated to the Outside Counsel Review and the request by the Board for Mr. O’Connor to resign, including his concerns about the performance of KiOR’s management team and KiOR’s technology. A copy of the Resignation Letter and related exhibits is attached hereto as Exhibit 17.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K (this “Form 8-K”). All descriptions of the contents of the Resignation Letter set forth in this Form 8-K are qualified in their entirety by reference to the full text of the Resignation Letter.

The Company and the Board have reviewed the Resignation Letter and concluded that: (i) none of the issues raised in the Resignation Letter were part of the basis for the Board’s request for Mr. O’Connor to resign, (ii) each of the substantive matters raised in the Resignation Letter were previously raised, investigated and considered by the Company’s special independent board committee focused on reviewing the company’s operations and (iii) the general substance of the issues addressed in Mr. O’Connor’s Resignation Letter do not require additional action by the Board at this time. In addition, as a summary matter, Company management disagrees with the claims made by Mr. O’Connor in the Resignation Letter and Mr. O’Connor’s characterizations of certain facts and his general conclusions.

The Company intends to continue to vigorously respond to allegations by Mr. O’Connor that it considers to be false, misleading or inappropriate and is currently considering all of its options, including the possibility of legal action against Mr. O’Connor.

The Company has provided Mr. O’Connor with a copy of the disclosures it is making in response to this Item 5.02 no later than the date of filing of this Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company will provide Mr. O’Connor with the opportunity to furnish the Company, as promptly as possible, with a letter addressed to the Company stating whether Mr. O’Connor agrees with the statements made by the Company in response to this Item 5.02 and, if not, stating the respects in which he does not agree. The Company will file any such letter received from Mr. O’Connor with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an exhibit by amendment to this Form 8-K within two business days after receipt by the Company.

http://investor.kior.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-14-333785&CIK=1418862

I know. Already have a postwritten up that's going up in the morning.