I have alot of respect for William Ackman because he is going after Herbalife and even squared off against Carl Icahn the real life corporate Raider going back to the Ivan Boesky- Gordon Gekko days. I believe as Ackman does that Herbalife is a criminal enterprise set up more or less like a Ponzi scam. It is somewhat ambiguous as to what constitutes a Ponzi scheme that is why this fight where Ackman stated that he spent close to 50 million of his own money will get quite interesting. He even mentioned that one of the head sheds on CNBC perjured himself by claiming 90% of Herbalifes revenue comes from retail sales. This is how it really works. Joe Blow off the street is broke and miserable and is approached by an up line rep claiming that they will show them how to make alot of money by selling legit products. These products are legit however Joe Blow has to pay money out of his own pocket to get started. What makes this a ruthless enterprise is that not only does Joe Blow not make any money he alienates all of his friends and family members by trying to get them involved in this operation as well. Now Joe Blow is even poorer and the few friends that he did have are forever out of his life because they saw the sales pitch coming from miles away. This is how a Network Marketing operation works, only the top dogs make any real money. It is set up almost like a cult, it makes it very difficult, some would say almost even impossible to become a top dog once the Pyramid is clearly established. Any money that is made becomes negligible if you equate the countless hours, time, effort and alienation of former friends and family members that went along with it. Countless families have been ruined by these type of cons. These companies make the majority of their money from the new gullible saps that have to buy in initially. They need a constant supply of new gullible saps to recruit others because this is where the real money is made not through retail sales. God bless William Ackman keep up the great work. My plan for the future includes an insurance type slush fund worth billions, this will be used to reimburse real Ponzi Scam victims. The problem with Ponzi schemes is that they are extremely difficult to investigate. If one does any due diligence they may not find anything incriminating because on paper as in Madoffs case and many others they appear to be clean and legit. It is not until a few people start asking for their principle back or a rigged market scenario like 08 that the real red flags start going up and people start to finally realize that they have been robbed and in many cases are ruined for life. It doesn't matter that the scam artists get sentenced to harsh sentences, in some cases this makes it even worse. If the victims aren't compensated for in many cases their entire nest eggs being eliminated what difference does this make? It makes it even worse for some because while the criminals sit behind bars they are being fed and housed by the state meanwhile the victims are completely wiped out and sometimes cant even eat themselves, not good. It is bad enough that the American people are being victimized by Ponzi cons with the criminal off shore Fed and IRS. If somebody gets robbed by a Ponzi scam artist without an insurance type guaranteed payout for all of their losses including interest for pain and suffering, investigations and locking people up becomes an exercise in futility. Not everybody is a financial wizard, even the smartest people can become major victims and many already have. Lets get this multi billion dollar plus slush fund off the ground for all former and future victims of financial fraud and start to implement this in the years ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment