...tomorrow, Dan Ackman, major thorn in the side of Herbalife, will continue his assault agains the MLM, in a presentation before investors, attempting to prove Herbalife a "fraud."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101852868

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140718005546/en/Update-Pershing-Square-Capital-Management-Present-Investigation#.U81GCUCjvUK

http://www.herbalifepyramidscheme.com/

...additional link.

http://www.factsaboutherbalife.com/

Actually, that's Bill Ackman, who has had a major short position (later reduced somewhat) in Herbal Life for 16 months, and has taken a bit of a beating over it.

If you dig around here, I think you can find discussion of his hedge-fund and its shorting of HL:

http://www.forbes.com/profile/william-ackman/

especially here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/03/18/bill-ackmans-herbalife-short-bet-gets-30-percent-better/

I'm wishing him every success ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2014 01:33PM by 3X.

...I saw my screwup right after I posted. I was playing an old VHS tape of Dan Akroyd short-scenes. I was watching too closely.......word/name association, I guess........BAD! :)

Results of Ackman's presentation on Herbal Life:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/07/22/business/ap-us-herbalife-ackman.html

...yes, it didn't go his way, but there might be more scrutiny regarding this MLM, and many others. It's unfortunate that the Church membership is always "harvested" in frauds like this. But, they seem to be fine with it................

I have been following the story, so I watched the entire presentation today, and have read some of the published reactions, and observed both yesterday's and today's stock market response.

One impression I came away with:

Like Mormonism, MLM fraud is unusually (and maybe counter intuitively) complicated, outrageously dishonest and obfuscated. The perpetrators lie so much, blatantly employ DARVO and other bad faith tactics against victims/critics, and the story seems so far fetched, that such a massive fraud would be allowed to go on for so long, that it is too difficult for your average Joe or Joanne to get their mind around the whole thing. Ackman is absolutely right, and was also right to compare it as he did at a couple of points to the mafia or totalist groups or the like....what I mean is, it is definitely on the cult spectrum. But to get the public to understand it.....that is soooo difficult....and getting the public/the market to see it is obviously getting crazy making for even someone with the brains and financial resources of Ackman.

He is in the same boat all of us here are, in a way.

*****


One weird detail from today's expose on the HLF "Nutrition Clubs": Nut Club owners are taught as part of the Nut Club biz system (and don't question the system!... obey obey obey....do what you're taught by leaders, because system is "proven! No fail! This is the only way to get to Millionaire's Team!") to put their daily cash collections into a Green Envelope (the Green Envelope money is supposedly their "salary" but by the time they pay for expenses like rent, electricity, water, office supplies etc on the Nut Club, they are only at break even or in the hole financially). Anyway, once a week, the Nutrition Club owner is instructed that they must always take 10 percent of the money out of the Green Envelope and transfer it to a Red Envelope, labelled "Increase". For the Nutrition Club Owner to succeed, they are taught that the money in the Red Envelope must be used to buy more products from Herbalife....

I thought, OMG....Tithing, Herba-style!!

Herbalife shares rally 25% - biggest single-day gain in company history. Ackman disappoints once again.

Ackman got his butt kicked today.

I think shorting is illegal in Australia and many countries. Where does the money come from to pay out if a company sh!ts itself?

Doesn't it encourage sabotage?

Theoretically ...

Every Share Bought Short, has to be Matched by Another Buying Long ...

But, More Often than Not, The Company itself, MUST Make Good on Losses!

I would never sell short. I prefer to sleep at night.

A quick answer re ethics and the role of short selling in the market:


http://www.investopedia.com/university/shortselling/shortselling4.asp



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2014 10:16AM by 2+2=4.

The Nutrition Club "Interns/Trainees" are cleaning toilets for free. Sound familiar?


I think that this post is totally on-topic, myself.

Anybody here heard of Choffy? It's a MLM run by a bunch or Mormons. It's a ground Cacao product that you brew like coffee. Like natural hot chocolate.
My brother in law is involved with it and does really well, but I really hope he doesn't get burned in the future if the business turns out to be shady.

How does MLM differ from Pyramid?

Why are Mormons so drawn to it?

A MLM and a Pyramid Scheme are the same thing. They came up with the name MLM to make it sound less like a pyramid scheme but there really is no difference.

...here is the Choffy deal. Don't know if it's LDS owned.

http://choffy.com/