After Job Losses Local Lawmaker Wants Elio Investigation

[Travelbuzz1]

Since we're all here as unqualified analysts (lol), let me start first and put words in their mouths based on this picture: (by the way, that wasn't a smile from PE, that's a smirk!)
Paul emerging from the meeting and talking to himself "Like it or not, I'm still the head huncho and I decide when to pull the plug! So between now and then, you can all kiss my a_ _!" The other guy on the phone talking to somebody "oh yeah, we got him! I told him he can't bullshit his way around it anymore, you've got no funding so you can't obviously make cars out of nothing and that's just the fact! Give it up or it'll get uglier for you!".

Go here....http://m.ksla.com/ksla/db/350562/content/w6jQpUTf

 

[Travelbuzz1]

But wait there's moar... http://710keel.com/paul-elio-erupts-during-shreveport-press-conference/

I watched this entirely live, and the press where given time for questions, when they finished and it was over. They began with more questions when he was leaving, and he was there for their questions and they didn't ask them. They just kept on hounding him.

 

[BaldGuy]

I watched the video and I thought Paul handled himself well. He always says he feels good that it will happen. Hopefully he will pull it off someday relatively soon. None of us is getting any younger including Mr. Elio himself.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

Ksla photo showing Elio and Johnson emerging from the closed door meeting.

View attachment 21636

I don't think either of these gentleman look happy.

Save a few bucks buy a tall instead of a grande, even better Mc D makes great coffee (less bitter than Starbucks) - (maybe Howard will step up to the plate with all the positioning that Paul has given.) and only a buck- sorry no sleeve, not that his cup is still hot

 

[TheAsterisk!]

Getting back on topic...

I thought it was on topic, just because of the similarities in the businesses' financial risk and likelihood of success, versus the disparities in local governments' behaviors around each.

TL;DR
Even my local government, comprised of morons and martinets, hasn't been as stupid as the twits down in Shreveport, faced with an analogous situation.

Car company, startup, with trouble financing, acquires a plant that was shuttered by an established manufacturer, and as yet has no product offered for sale. (Rivian is even further back, with no working concept car or prototypes to view and sit in.) Local labor base still largely present, and looking for work. Nonetheless, the totality of objections here consisted of an article written by a student citing concerns over the company's past and funding, and two locals pleading for caution at a town council meeting. A former rep for the UAW also spoke (in favor) and incentives along with the purchase were approved. The mayor even said- more or less- that should this company prove to be worthless, they can at least use their purchase of the plant to stave off having to raze the facility, and maybe find another buyer down the road. (Maynards Industries, I think it was, had bought to property, either to sell or to demolish, and the property and property taxes to fund local schools had been significantly depreciated as a result.) It was also pointed out that no one else had expressed any interest, neither when Mitsubishi was trying to find a buyer nor when Maynards took on the same task.

The plant is in Normal, IL, and immediately adjacent is Bloomington, which is State Farm's corporate headquarters, so even without a longer view like that, it would be unlikely to completely tank the local economy. There would still be a decent, stable income base, but municipal and county funding might drop off somewhat without the additional tax revenue.

To be clear, I'm not even in favor of the plan, and think it's very likely that Rivian will fail spectacularly, but at least it hasn't been complete complacency and single-mindedness, a absolute dearth of realism. A gamble, but a decently understood and acknowledged one.

Contrast that with the rhetoric we hear from Shreveport every couple of weeks when the local pols get stir crazy. No planning, no realism, no contingencies for if Elio failed. Just a blind assurance that jobs were guaranteed, and then the outrage of the entitled when it didn't happen as very-optimistically planned. It makes me think these people have no place in local governance, and no business in business, regardless of my affinity for Elio's proposed platform and other little cars. They made no alternate plans, and that's a guarantee for abject failure in any endeavor over a sufficient span of time.

The odds have been and remain firmly against Elio Motors, too, as a startup and in particular as a new automotive company, but it seems that that was never fully grokked and still can't be accepted by the very people whose job it was to appreciate that reality and to plan and manage expectations accordingly, given their decision to entertain the prospect.

It strikes me more as convenient scapegoating than anything else. If they had another business waiting to move in and take over, then their antagonistic attitude might make sense from a consequentialist perspective, at least, but they don't even seem to have that.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

I thought it was on topic, just because of the similarities in the businesses' financial risk and likelihood of success, versus the disparities in local governments' behaviors around each.

TL;DR
Even my local government, comprised of morons and martinets, hasn't been as stupid as the twits down in Shreveport, faced with an analogous situation.

Hummmmmmmm
Why does this sound sooooo familiar??
Contrast that with the rhetoric we hear from Washington every couple of weeks when the local pols get stir crazy. No planning, no realism, no contingencies for if Elio failed. Just a blind assurance that jobs were guaranteed, and then the outrage of the entitled when it didn't happen as very-optimistically planned. It makes me think these people have no place in (local-deleted) governance, and no business in business, regardless of my affinity for Elio's proposed platform and other little cars. They made no alternate plans, and that's a guarantee for abject failure in any endeavor over a sufficient span of time.
Underlines me

 

[KenK]

Even my local government, comprised of morons and martinets, hasn't been as stupid as the twits down in Shreveport, faced with an analogous situation.

Martinets? Shouldn't that be marionettes?

 

[booboo]

Don Pierson is Secretary of Louisiana Economic Development.

http://710keel.com/state-economic-development-boss-disputes-elio-claims-video/

 

[booboo]

For those that did not see the full press conference. It is here in full.
http://www.arklatexhomepage.com/new...ference-to-address-company-concerns/711704754

 

[Folks]

Don Pierson is Secretary of Louisiana Economic Development.

http://710keel.com/state-economic-development-boss-disputes-elio-claims-video/

If Mr Don Pierson established a 6 month right to negotiate for the GM plant to another potential Customer some time in the past, well, that is indeed a delay as to the securing the plant facility to Elio's future. That's all Mr Elio mentioned or said. The lady announcer on this station is the only person needing thrown under the bus. Gimee a break. Will you?