John Olson Quotations

The board cannot be expected to surrender its authority to another branch of government; there is a fundamental issue of separation of powers here.

They could, I suppose, put in some mandatory penalties that would up the ante. But increasing penalties does not necessarily increase prosecutions. It may make them harder -- tougher penalties could make judges more cautious and raise more grounds for appeal.

This is as high a high-wire act as I have ever seen. If this merger is to survive, equity investors will need to have a reason to buy the stock and their confidence will need to be restored, because the equity investor has been leading the way down.

I've seen some of those cases tried from time to time, and they take many months -- often years -- to investigate.

It feels like the only things left in south Louisiana are snakes and alligators. Houston is positioned for a boom.

Rather, at the time, it seemed that all Merchant Energy companies were sucked down by the Enron undertow.

It would be nice to give it more thought, ... but I understand the need to get cracking and not let the perfect be the enemy of the possible.

Looking at a number of forecasters out there in the gas marketing community, the price of gas is expected to drop...to about $4.80 by August and then recover to about the $8 area by January.

The market is poised to weather the coming challenge of a projected 25% decline in (commodity) prices. How much the market discounts into the future remains to be seen. I'm telling you in the next five months gas prices might fall as much as 25%, according to some seasoned industry observers...and then recover smartly. The stock market is fickle. It probably is heading into a little heavier weather in April and May before it begins to look at the coming heating season and look at the coming (commodity) price recovery instead of the price decline.

They win on the income statement. They win on the balance sheet. And they win on the cash flow statement.