IMO the demise of modern journalism presents an absolutely enormous opportunity for the few people with the right skills: If this is even close to true (66% of corp fraud undetected) imagine if you could get even a couple researchers to detect more of it using publicly available information. Set up a massive short position on that company and fire off press releases on a slow Newsday to share what you found with the public. I actually knew some professional researchers and talked to them about this once. I'm too lazy to actually put it together but pretty sure it's a viable idea.
I literally started screaming with joy like a lunatic at my phone in the middle of the street.
Turns out... even an obvious obvious obvious fraud can keep going like
wile coyote for prolonged periods of time. Do not friggin recommend.
I also have been trading the Turkish lira for over a year. Also do not recommend as they flat out cheat and gaslight on.. frankly historical scales.. as well as get foreign currency under the table from fellow despots.
If you're wondering what the hell would possess me: at some point they started making schemes like "citizens it is your patriotic duty to sell us your gold jewelry so we may smelt it, we will give you a great price promise" -- the list of shenanigans got so long and comical and the central bank balance sheets so iffy I couldn't help myself. It is very true that western media under reports this, they might mention the out of control inflation but don't explain how the country is run by clueless mobsters.
Being correct directionally is not nearly enough. Be very careful. This Adani thing mostly bounced back already, unless you're willing to be very patient as it unfurls over literal years you very easily could lose money despite being right.
I also directly shorted $NKLA shares. There was no realistic way they were going to make post-SPAC buyers money, but I also didn’t know if it would take 3 months or 3 years to unwind.
I remember being unable to sleep wondering if the audience at his events were all hired actors. But then they couldn't be as that is a conspiracy involving too many people. Looking online he had actual fans and true believers and they were basically illiterate people gambling he is the next Elon, absolutely nothing would phase them.
The journalists interviewing him clearly had no idea about the difference between a gas powered and a hydrogen vehicle. And neither did he as he would steer the conversation into folksy directions whenever anything remotely technical came up.
I did a lot of soul searching and accepted that this is the stupidest time line and the emperor really is naked. And this time I caught his tiny wiener flapping in the wind in time. It was just beyond obvious.
I thought it was so obvious and then called out publicly and exposed.
It doesn’t matter. I think that as long as the right people in the media are greased it doesn't enter the mass consciousness.
If you look at the mass media, you will see that the actors on the news will show emotions around certain subjects, they will make a grind or a disgusted face while talking about a problem at a company or a political movement. That is what change people mind when repeated many times.
> This video (from a shadow banned account) show how the media talk with one voice. https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE
That was that Sinclair media thing. The fact that they have independent teams serving many smaller markets gave it away. If (say) CNN were to do the same thing, they could probably reach an even bigger audience with one guy reading the script, which can't be exposed with a supercut.
Maybe I've listened to too many CNBC interviews, to me he sounds like any other exec? "Blah blah everything is going great, we need capital but it's going great".
Just a totally bland exec call, standard for that station. But also keep in mind it is essentially an advertising segment. They pretend not to be, but the way you get yourself on the show is a quid-pro-quo: some producer will need someone to say something interesting to fill up CNBC's day, and this is something, so the guy gets put on in exchange for an easy interview. I know people who've been on the show, and people who presented on the channel. This is why you get a lot of recurring guests like Mr Jones from Jones Asset Management coming on over and over, the little guys need to promote themselves.
> Maybe I've listened to too many CNBC interviews, to me he sounds like any other exec? "Blah blah everything is going great, we need capital but it's going great".
> Just a totally bland exec call, standard for that station.
Yes it almost makes your eyes glaze over. By design. But you see ,unlike an actual exec at an actual real company at this point in time he is burning cash and literally has nothing to sell and nothing to show.
If you listen carefully to his explanation of when he plans to actually show something and sell things -- you will note that it is... complete... gibberish..
> But also keep in mind it is essentially an advertising segment.
Absolutely. And what is he advertising at this point in time? :)
Imagine he was talking about a super sonic long distance electric VTOL plane instead of hydrogen trucks.
"We have no debt and plenty of money in the bank and these things are going to roll off the factory line next year just as soon as we figure out the PR with our customers as the timelines are tricky. Meanwhile we can't show you anything. Please buy my stock."
Exactly. You wouldn't do "obvious fraud" with this setup: you would do "things that aren't obvious but a couple good researchers could prove". You don't even need to scare everyone out of the security, just do enough to make a few big players go "ooh, I didn't know _that_".
This is the correct take. The world is nowadays largely owned and operated by various criminal organisations that rake in more cash in a month than entire nations do in a year. Thank you, prohibition.
I think you have to be an "insider" to qualify as a whistleblower. NAL, but I think if you were gonna do this you'd have to be squeaky clean using only public data. Otherwise it's textbook insider trading.
> Set up a massive short position on that company and fire off press releases on a slow Newsday to share what you found with the public.
How naive... No One would listen... [1]
> No One Would Listen is the thrilling story of how the Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, and his investigative team uncovered Bernie Madoff's scam years before it made headlines, and how they desperately tried to warn the government, the industry, and the financial press.
My gut is that it is more likely that 66% of fraud being undetected is more along the lines of "mistakes are easy to make and often ignored." That is, for it to be fraud, intent matters. More, for it to be substantial and actually a problem, value matters.
Consider, is it employee theft if they take a notepad home? I'd wager not. Now, if they empty out the supply closet? Almost certainly yes.
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