As the team reassembled after lunch, the mood was upbeat . Even Jack seemed more relaxed, if not enthusiastic. It was almost as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders he didn't sense a feeling of criticism from his colleagues; rather, one of satisfaction that he was (apparently) willing to have an open mind and evaluate the economic framework on its merits instead of biases. " They're not such a bad group, after all", he thought to himself. " I hope they feel the same way about me".

Jason wanted to emphasize an important point from the EP Assessment, and began with "One of the important aspects of any value-based financial system is the focus on change; that is, where we have been and where we are going with respect to EP and the support measures we are about to discuss. We've done what I think is a credible job in determining how we will construct and calculate the EP metric for Growthstar. It may not be perfect, but it certainly is a reasonable approximation of a market-based cash flow measure. I believe it is consistent with our theme of simplicity with integrity. So, what we've done is to put a stake in the ground . We'll measure EP changes and evaluate new business investments using the approach we've established. Thus, we will have consistency in front-end analysis and back-end reviews. We will also view the company,...