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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)

#131

Post by ridruejo »

the_duke wrote: post #66
ridruejo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not like it, but it is not necessarily a scam. Some of the posts by Bronte capital mentioned in the article http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-lon... http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2016/07/herbalife-and-end-...

Ahm, are you seriously offering those 'articles' as a serious defense or counter argument?

Yes. Don't understand the airquotes. The blog has over a dozen of extremely well thought out articles, detailed analysis of Herbalife, including the author attending multiple events, getting to know the distributors, etc. in an effort to understand what is going on.

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

#132

Post by opportune »

Finnucane wrote: post #121
opportune wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone than actually deconstructing why they are wrong. And even when he does deconstruct things, I think many of his arguments hinge on emotion and non-sequitur (e.g. It's 201X). I am an anti-fan of him, personally. He's basically the young peoples' version of a right-wing talk radio host or TV personality, yet people do not at all seem to realiz…

>John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.

He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)

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

#133

Post by ringaroundthetx »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #130
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fund's holdings are known, and the fund manager's dispositions are easily inferred by how much they talk about something. ie. How married they are to a position. So for example, when Valeant Pharmaceauticals was tanking from its highs of $220, all the way to $16, after Bill Ackman defended it, doubled down, joined the board, and bought calls, and then admitted to not having more funds available. You just short ot…

How was Ackman able to get away with having lost so much money on Valeant?

"get away"?

His fund didn't go insolvent, many investors did redeem their stake in his funds when their lockup periods were up, and he has enough interest and clout to continue?

I'm not sure what you are asking. Its worded like you thought there would be police or broken kneecaps involved

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

#134

Post by thephyber »

martincmartin wrote: post #68
Overtonwindow wrote: post #31

I use to work in legislative affairs for the natural health industry. It's all one big scam. I try to explain it like this: Company A sells natural remedies, etc. Company B is a news organization which reports on natural health remedies, and also advertises for those companies, et. Nonprofit C is a consumer watchdog organization that investigates and promotes natural health. They are supported by the natural health i…

extremely difficult for consumers to see through to factual information. This is why I like consumerlab.org. They summarize the medical research and test to see how much of the active ingredient it actually has.

I think the most valuable sources of information right now are independent non-profits.

Do you have any other recommendations along this line?

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

#135

Post by tptacek »

opportune wrote: post #132
Finnucane wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.

He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)

Ok, he's a bad pundit.

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

#136

Post by Finnucane »

opportune wrote: post #132
Finnucane wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.

He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)

You know that political comedy is not really a new thing, right?

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

#137

Post by [deleted] »

opportune wrote: post #132
Finnucane wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.

He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)

[deleted]

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

#138

Post by Overtonwindow »

thephyber wrote: post #134
martincmartin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

extremely difficult for consumers to see through to factual information. This is why I like consumerlab.org. They summarize the medical research and test to see how much of the active ingredient it actually has.

I think the most valuable sources of information right now are independent non-profits. Do you have any other recommendations along this line?

It's impossible to determine which nonprofits are independent. So many nonprofits are industry backed, and depend on the industries they report on for most, if not all, of their funding. Your best bet are those that have been around along time, with clear 990's that show where money comes in, where it goes out, etc. There's an organization called Charity Navigator that tries to evaluate nonprofits, and score them based on transparency, etc. Another factor that I found in my experience is when a nonprofit goes after it's own industry. For example: Find a nonprofit that attacks MLM's and dietary supplements. Just because an organization says it's an independent nonprofit does not mean it is.

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

#139

Post by Tomte »

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…

His interview with Snowden is fantastic. He's clearly very sympathetic, but very strict.

Whenever Snowden starts techno-babbling, Oliver brings him back to "normal people level" with "how does this enable the NSA to see my private information?"

Clearly, Snowden is annoyed at first, because he's always taken back to "how can they see my dick pics", but I feel he realizes as the interview progresses that he's being given a much-needed lesson in public communication.

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

#140

Post by gehsty »

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #127
gehsty wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference is that there is a chain of people who profit from selling to their 'downlines', not when a product is sold to an actual customer. The analogy to apple is poor. Apple sell a product that the majority of people like and they are actively trying to sell directly to the customer. They use networks as it is their only option in many markets and once a phone is sold to the network it is then so…

>I think the main difference is that there is a chain of people who profit from selling to their 'downlines' How is it different from 3rd party Apple resellers? >Apple sell a product that the majority of people like As does Herbalife. >they are actively trying to sell directly to the customer Herbalife lets distributors handle sales, not very different from Apple's resellers. >They use networks as it is their only op…

It is different because there is only one level of re sellers, these re sellers are not the only path to market for the product, and that path to market when sold through a re seller is pretty clear, ie you know Apple make the phone, you know Apple have sold it to the carrier and the carrier is now selling it to you. There are literally multiple layers but the layers are clear and none shady (with the reseller layer adding value in the form of a network connection).

Herbalife's model would be Herbalife -> tier 1 -> tier 2 -> ..... -> tier n-1 -> t n, with no real clarity on how many tiers there are.

If Herbalife's product is as good as they claim why not sell it direct to customers either online or in supermarkets? They sell through 'distrubutors' because it allows them to make a profit without having to actually sell their product to a customer, because if they were reliant on direct customer based sales no one would buy there garbage product, and they wouldn't make a profit.

The litmus test for me for a system like this is if it seems like the best way to actually make money from something is not to actually sell the product to consumers but to recruit people into your downlines then its probably some kind of pyramid scheme. I can't see a single product or market where the best product would be the most profitable when sold through a MLM network.

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