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One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

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Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#91

Post by herbst »

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #80
zzleeper wrote: post #37

I've got the feeling this thread is full of people that drank the BS koolaid of herbalife. They either sell snake oil products, or protein shakes that are 10x cheaper at Costco. I've known people desperate enough to start selling that crap (as well as others-their friends-that have to buy it just due to friendship), so please stop spreading MLM scams.

>I've known people desperate enough to start selling that crap (as well as others-their friends-that have to buy it just due to friendship), so please stop spreading MLM scams. They offer 100% buyback for distributors for unopened products and they stopped lead generation completely 4 years ago. So, their distributors are no different from what cell phone carriers are to Apple. >They either sell snake oil products, o…

Next to the other guys argument why apple is a poor argument. As much as I dislike Apple they are actually in the middle price range of laptop's with that kind of specs and quality.

Same for the phones. Apple ain't expensive if you assume it is a quality product.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#92

Post by dsacco »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #87
Top19 wrote: post #86

All MLMs are scams. I hate using the term pyramid schemes, because if you use that term all of the MLM apologists will start cranking out very long-winded philosophical definitions of pyramid schemes that obscure the true point. The MLM "model" can be summarized thusly: - 1. Give people pretty good business advice from a host of good business books - 2. Give people a very positive exciting environment - 3. Give peopl…

Yes, they've completely subverted the internet for their own use. You can send people in need to John Oliver's amazing piece though.

I'm of the opinion that John Oliver is not really a good source for changing people's minds. I agree with a lot of his points and he cites sources, but I find him difficult to watch. A lot of his show appears to endorse an echo chamber: he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous.

That's a very pervasive problem in political satire. It's often pandering. You have hosts taking clips of someone doing or saying something the demographic audience is going to clearly disagree with, then acting absolutely gobsmacked at how stupid/malicious/unaware they are. That's not persuasive to anyone and doesn't complement changing someone's mind, it's just ridiculing the people they currently agree with.

Ostensibly the show is supposed to be informative, because he does appeal to the other side's rationality to try and persuade them. I think the usual argument for the format is that a sobering account doesn't capture enough attention, which is why jokes are interspersed. But those jokes are heavy handed enough that opponents probably will be put off. If the goal is actually convincing someone that MLMs don't really work for most people, I think there are probably better sources of information if they're willing to be proven wrong in the first place. And if they're not willing, they may take someone who is as abrasive as John Oliver as ridicule.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#93

Post by monochromatic »

markdown wrote: post #42
coaxial wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with rationality on your side, how could you lose? Look at south Africa, multi vitamins, and hiv/aids denialism. It's pretty fascinating, human toll aside.

Or USA and climate change denialism and the anti-vaxers.

Climate change skepticism does not belong in the same bucket as anti-vaccination.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#94

Post by nappy »

dsacco wrote: post #85
PeterisP wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "market average" like S&P is the expected return of passive investment - doing nothing, so that's why it's a reasonable benchmark. This (not 0%) is the straightforward default alternative investment, the one against you can measure an opportunity cost. The point of hedge funds is that they can do better than that, but charge a fee. However, if you get worse results than doing nothing, then the fee seems unjustifi…

The commenter you're responding to is aware of all of that, as he works in the industry. With regard to "the point" of hedge funds, what you're saying is not actually correct - the S&P500 is not necessarily an appropriate benchmark for comparison because it doesn't share the same risk profile. Concordantly it is not necessarily a failure if a hedge fund achieves a lower return than the S&P500 depending on its beta ex…

Excellent comment

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#95

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
gnu8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a sure thing to short the piss out of an enterprise like this and wage a comprehensive campaign of activism and consumer education against it. With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

> With rationality on your side, how could you lose? You could lose because the rational choice model does not accurately model human behavior in the real world; people don't act based on perfect information, in part because even when presented with correct information, they are likely to reject it if it doesn't fit their pre-existing world view.

[deleted]

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#96

Post by mbgilliland »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
gnu8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a sure thing to short the piss out of an enterprise like this and wage a comprehensive campaign of activism and consumer education against it. With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

> With rationality on your side, how could you lose? You could lose because the rational choice model does not accurately model human behavior in the real world; people don't act based on perfect information, in part because even when presented with correct information, they are likely to reject it if it doesn't fit their pre-existing world view.

That has very little to do with the rational choice model. Rational choice agrees that people don't act on perfect information. It also agrees that even when given good information, individuals don't necessarily believe it. All RCT really boils down to is the fairly uncontroversial statement that people act in accordance with their actual preferences (even if their preferences should be different, the actions are not well-calculated to achieve their goals, or they say they have different preferences).

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#97

Post by swiley »

jansan wrote: post #62
swimfar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I had heard is because Mormon's make great door-to-door salesmen. Many of the men have spent a year or two of door-to-door proselyting (attempting to convert). So they're used to selling to strangers and also being rejected. I'm not sure how true this is, but it seems plausible.

I see a lot of those Mormon young men here in Germany on their mission. There are usually two of them, dresses well and behaving very politely. Although they directly contact people on the street, I never have the feeling that anyone is annoyed by them. Therefore I could well imagine that they are great sales men.

Honestly, being stopped on the street and talked to isn't so bad if they're not trying to sell you something. The only reason I ever go out is to talk to people and almost everyone (myself included) is afraid to do it. I've come to enjoy the short conversations with the Jehovah's witnesses, the Hindus and so on even though I'll probably never believe most of what they're saying.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#98

Post by Finnucane »

dsacco wrote: post #92
throwaway7645 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they've completely subverted the internet for their own use. You can send people in need to John Oliver's amazing piece though.

I'm of the opinion that John Oliver is not really a good source for changing people's minds. I agree with a lot of his points and he cites sources, but I find him difficult to watch. A lot of his show appears to endorse an echo chamber: he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous. That's a very pervasive problem in political satire. It's often pandering. You have hosts taking clips of someo…

>he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous

That is literally his job description.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#99

Post by sharemywin »

Top19 wrote: post #86

All MLMs are scams. I hate using the term pyramid schemes, because if you use that term all of the MLM apologists will start cranking out very long-winded philosophical definitions of pyramid schemes that obscure the true point. The MLM "model" can be summarized thusly: - 1. Give people pretty good business advice from a host of good business books - 2. Give people a very positive exciting environment - 3. Give peopl…

To me you're kind of misusing the term scam. To me it's no more of a scam than buying a stock at the wrong time or working for a startup with options or any affiliate program. A lot of the time the products are really good at first they're usually hard to sell in retail and then usually the market catches up at the retail level and the product becomes a commodity. And at the same time the market saturates with reps and it becomes a bad opportunity.

Re: One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)

#100

Post by Vanayad »

Top19 wrote: post #86

All MLMs are scams. I hate using the term pyramid schemes, because if you use that term all of the MLM apologists will start cranking out very long-winded philosophical definitions of pyramid schemes that obscure the true point. The MLM "model" can be summarized thusly: - 1. Give people pretty good business advice from a host of good business books - 2. Give people a very positive exciting environment - 3. Give peopl…

Well, I know people that made a living and brought up two children with the help of Herbalife, so it is not THAT bad. It is not easy, and not a good job, on those points I do agree though.
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