I have been reading the LYC posts for a long while and I have...

I have been reading the LYC posts for a long while and I have observed a number of recurring patterns.
Up until recently if a post had any hint of pessimism it would invariably elicit very strong,and sometimes personal,criticism.
For some reason this seemed to be much more frequent and critical than with other stocks I follow. Sometimes such posts were almost vilified as traitorous.
The other pattern was one of blame.
Politics obviously figured prominently and the Gillard/Rudd governments were clearly responsible when share prices retreated. Again,my own impressions were that LYC posts were more blaming and vindictive than other company stock holders.

However it is in the area of response to the Malaysian environmental movement that elicited some of the fearcest and emotive responses.
I could find very little objective analysis, on the posts,of the local population's environmental concerns. I believe that this, in turn, led to an underestimation of the extent of support for the environmental movement, and its potential impact on development time lines and share price.
Over many months I kept thinking that that the most negative of the posts did not really understand "their enemy"(attributing the environmental reaction to either oppositional political strategy or a handful of greenie agitators leading a mob of lemmings).
When citizens, living in the area of most risk, feel they are being ignored their legitimate widespread anxiety leads them to turn to figurehead leadership.
There has been many world-wide examples of massive harm done to environments and to people's health as a result of industrial accidents or careless management.
As a result there is a deep-seeded mistrust,particularly of overseas companies, developing potentially dangerous industries,on home soil.
It means very little to the population to be assured that the most stringent environmental controls have been imposed,as they know that the agencies responsible for monitoring those controls have been stripped of their resources and expertise. They also don't trust because they have seen too many examples of suspected corruption,and companies running to the bankruptcy courts when expensive environmental disasters require cleaning up. They are also aware of the denial games and the shifting of responsibilities when problems do arise.
In our own country we have seen uranium leaks into Kakado,we have seen water tables polluted by gas fracking, we have seen people having to vacate their town arising from fires in old coal mines and we have toxic wastes being poured into rivers.
Environmental issues are very real and concerns are legitimate. When trust is not high, when they don't know the international company, and when they believe such companies are less accountable to their community,it is no wonder there is sustained opposition.
We now have stockholders saying that LYC management are poor communicators,grossly incompetent and one even calls them liars.
There are posts that hypothesise that the company may go to the wall, or be subject to foreign takeover.
The company is facing problems,not just from delays arising from the approval process, but arising from misreading market demand and from corroded pipes.
With such apparent incompetent management,when the company is not respected by some of its own shareholders,is it no wonder the environmental movement in Malaysia have reason to mistrust? Who will the residents and local government be dealing with in the future,and what sort of environmental record will that company own.
I have made this post as I believe it was totally predicable that there would be a strong and long term opposition to the plant of this nature.Not to have understood the full potential of such opposition in my opinion was naive and poor management.
To constantly label the environmentalists as feral, tree-hugging greenies,or political stooges,is a total underestimation of the support and motivation behind the opposition. Apart from being inaccurate it does not assist in developing effective strategies that have any chance of achieving local support. Without local support problems will always escalate.
I have not read the companies business plan for working with the local community. I now intend to do so. If there is a strategy, I hope it is more successful than it has been in the past.It certainly won't be helped by stockholders underestimating and stereotyping opponents to the project.