You say:

But I cannot let these go:

-We have temporarily suspended share repurchases to preserve cash balances.

-We have borrowed $3M against the ARS to ensure we have the funds on hand, assuming that borrowing at some future time may be difficult or impossible due to a worsening financial market.

Those are not positives. They are reactions to negatives.

PPS is pushing a 3 year low and yet to preserve cash reserves, PTSC has suspended stock repurchases. This says more about expected future cash flow and PPS than it does about agile management.

Same with borrowing against the ARS. Being in the ARS at all is a huge negative. Having to borrow against it isn't a net positive. What is a supposed M&A company doing tying up capital like that?

I can let the distant past go but things like the ARS investment are recent history and not something to just shrug off. RG communicates well and paints a glorious picture of the future. But I'm sure Jack Welch would agree that talk is cheap compared to results. Everything is wait and see, with each new development failing to deliver but, since it's not the worst case scenario, justified as "it could be worse" or "at least PTSC is moving forward."

I have to disagree.

$7,000,000 cash is, in my very humble opinion, a far better tool for M&A than the stock equivalent, at this moment in time. Reducing the current cash balance would therefore appear irresponsible.

As to the ARS,

In November 2007, the board and our CFO outlined and approved an investment policy to allow certain of the company’s funds to be discretionally managed by Deutsche Bank (DB), a large and reputable banking institution, in order to provide professional management of monies not immediately required for the day-to-day operations at the company. The policy appropriately outlined levels of diversification and risk the company was willing to accept. One of the mechanisms used by DB to achieve the objectives of safety and liquidity had been to invest in various FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program) Auction Rate Obligations that are sponsored by different state agencies. Since their inception 20 years ago, these investments operated uninterrupted in a liquid market that provided for monthly interest rate resets

However, as a positive development I should mention that subsequent to the end of our fiscal quarter, during the first week of December, we received partial redemptions on our auction rate securities totaling $1.3 million.

Also pertinent to the subject of the auction rate investments, during the quarter we initiated binding arbitration claims before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, also known as FINRA, against Deutsche Bank Securities and its affiliates based on the advisory services they provided to us which resulted in our purchase of the now illiquid auction rate products.

At this time we can disclose little more than our claims, which allege that Deutsche Bank engaged in negligence and non-disclosure in their rendering of services to us. Deutsche Bank has not yet responded to these claims

It would appear that 10% of the ARS have been redeemed, with the potential for full reimbursement of the remainder, plus any award for the above allegations. Hardly a negative from my perspective. I would expect all costs associated with the loan arrangement, including interest payments, to be part of any settlement.

From negatives have come positive reactions.

Be well