The Gamestop Short Squeeze and Its Implications on the Widening Wealth Gap

 First of all, there is no denying the wealth gap had been widened between the haves and have-nots during the pandemic. The people who barely got jobs are doing worse than ever. People who had wealth didn't give a **** other than being inconvenienced. 

And currently, the Gamestop Short Squeeze is causing some panic among the most wealthy of investors... such as hedge fund managers, who wield tremendous wealth (of their clients) and can make or break companies. They can't believe a bunch of plebes had caused them to lose a ton of money. 

To make a long story short: a "short-sell" is basically a "bet" that the price of a particular stock would fall. It's also known to "hold a short position". And a lot of hedge funds held a short position on GME (Gamestop) stock, tens of millions worth. On Tuesday, those hedge funds started to panic when GME stock starting moving the OTHER way instead... it's going up, and up. And the hedge fund managers decided to get out and just eat their losses. And when one does, others quickly followed, And their exit from their short position fueled the rise of the prices even higher, cause yet other short sellers to give in. All in all, it was estimated that this one stock caused its short sellers about 5 BILLION dollars net, and 876 million in a single day.  And those who joined the buy-in early reaped tremendous benefits. 

If you want detailed explanations, feel free to Google (tm) "short selling a stock" and "Gamestop short squeeze" and read genuine news sites offering analysis of this event, not just the pundits. 

But what about the wealth gap? 

This is where it becomes interesting. You see, people did engineer the "squeeze", but they have tried to rally the smaller investors for MONTHS, both on Reddit and on wallstreetbets Discord, and probably other venues as well. That they went viral was probably not what they expected. 

But is this "market manipulation"? Or is this within the law, as no untruth was passed around, just a lot of fund managers caught with their pants down, and got... reamed in the process? 

The fund managers are already speaking out... They want the government to stop "meme stocks" from destroying the market... which should probably say "their own portfolio's worth" instead. Some even as far as labeling wallstreetbets as "alt-right". 

What's even more interesting is some brokerages have suspended the trade of these so-called "meme stocks" or placed severe restrictions on quantity. Though several later rescinded the limit, claiming that their trade clearinghouse had both technical and financial issues and once those are resolved the trading is back to normal. However, Robinhood so far has yet to relax the 1 share restriction, which is interesting in that Robinhood portrayed itself as an advocate for the small investors, thus the name. 

There's a longer explanation here. Basically, the trading firms cannot execute the trade directly, but have to go through a clearinghouse. And because the clearinghouse is the one who has to actually execute the trade, they are the hold holding the most liability and risk, and that is worse for the most volatile stocks, and thus, the trading prices went up by a sharp margin, and somebody have to cover those costs, as they cannot be covered by customer funds, due to regulations. However, Webull and other platforms, but notably, NOT Robinhood, were able to get Apex to find other partners to cover its risks and trading resumed. 

Indeed, other clearinghouses such as TD Ameritrade Clearing and Charles Schwab Clearing did not choose to restrict trading at all, and Apex only did so for limited time. Robinhood chose to restrict trading. It is worth pointing out however, Robinhood uses its own internal clearing, rather than using an external clearinghouse. 

TL;DR -- Robinhood chose to restrict trading and has yet to relax. Other trading houses either never restricted trading, or was only restricted for a short time while some issues were settled. 

Is this merely coincidental timing? It certainly could be, and how Robinhood does business is indeed its own business, but the timing of the decision makes it the fodder of conspiracy theorists, calling Robinhood a "traitor" and "sellout" to the elite despite its namesake. 

UPDATE: My explanation was haphazard. Apparently, a broker has to provide collateral of which the amount depends on the volatility of the stock to the clearinghouse. And Robinhood's CEO claimed he was woken up at 3AM that the company needs to put up like a billion bucks collateral IMMEDIATELY in subsequent interviews. On the other hand, he refused to admit he was put into a cash crunch by this. He chose to restrict trading, and thus, decrease the need for cash, and thus, there is no cash crunch. 

But really, what Robinhood did was by a) by choosing to restrict trading instead of cash crunch, b) it had instead made itself conspiracy fodder through convenient timing. 

I find Louis Rossmann's explanations on Youtube pretty digestible. 

In a related case of "convenient timing", Discord is banning the wallstreetbets Discord server due to repeated inability to observe common netizen decency on profanity and bad language. Keep in mind that wallstreetbets Discord and the subreddit are populated by personalities who basically insult each other for kicks, that it became a style that just doesn't fit on Discord. The fact that Discord chose this particular moment to enforce the ban make wallstreetbets look like martyrs and Discord a stooge for the wealthy elite... which is rather (in)convenient timing indeed. 

But the point is... Be skeptical, make sure what you hear are facts, not merely opinions. Opinions makes sense when they are presented because evidence presented are usually one-sided or out of context. Look up all the facts, both sides of the aisle, before making your decision. 

Scam Psychology: Bogus Science and Alternative Facts Redux

One of the ways scams and woo spread is by linking a famous person to it, never mind that famous person actually said the EXACT OPPOSITE.

Recently, there was a Twitter debate when someone rehashed the myth that "cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment", and cited Dr. Otto Warburg, 1931 Nobel Laureate, and even claimed that's what he got the Nobel prize for.  But it wasn't.

This alkaline nonsense was thoroughly busted by Snopes back in 2016, as well as by practically every major medical news website and several hospitals and medical schools. To make a long story short, it's circular reasoning. Dr. Warburg actually discovered that cancer cells produce MORE lactic acid by using a different metabolism method than healthy cells. While a cancerous body is slightly acidic than normal, this is the effect of cancer, NOT THE CAUSE. And you can't force a body or blood to be acidic through diet (that means your kidneys have FAILED!). It's clear that whoever listened to this nonsense doesn't understand cause and effect. They think cancer -> acid, then anti-acid = anti-cancer. It doesn't work like that.  A caused B. B does not cause A.

But the way they try to validate their nonsense by citing Dr. Warburg via the false citing was the reason for this post. Falsely citing a celebrity is a common scam tactic, usually ignored by the company as that would imply they willingly violated state or Federal laws on False Endorsement and Right of Publicity Claims. In fact, some companies are known to have set up fake news pages claiming links between their products and actors and celebrities such as actor Will Farrell and celebrity chef Paula Dean.

Back in 2004 Actor Ray Liotta sued Nerium after some Nerium reps falsely claimed via Facebook posts that Mr. Liotta's facial complexion improved due to the use of their products. The case was later settled out of court. But this hardly stopped other overeager reps from claiming things that have no basis in science or fact.

One of the more recent victims of false endorsement was Malaysia sprinter Watson Myambek. In November 2018, someone was spreading claims on Facebook that Nyambek is a Bitcoin millionaire to promote some sort of crypto-scam. He categorically denied such allegations and said he will file a report with police and want the lying culprit found.

The point is unless you can trust the source, like a reputable newspaper article, you should NOT believe anything you read on Facebook and similar social media platforms.

British Columbia (Canada) Chiropractic Org Crack Down on Spurious Claims by Members, How About US?

You will often find that chiropractors claim to be able to treat everything from ADHD and Alzheimers to diabetes, infertility, all the way to Down's syndrome, and they are all over websites, blogs, and social media postings. There is absolutely ZERO evidence chiropractic can treat those afflictions. It seems one professional organization is finally doing something about these unsupported claims... and it's a chiropractic organization.

College of Chiropractors of British Columbia (Canada) has warned all members from making efficacy claims in its latest policy clarification, mandated any claims to be removed ASAP, and the deadline passed three days ago (on 01-NOV-2018).

What is also interesting is BC Chiropractors are NOT allowed to give public opinions about vaccination (for or against) as chiropractors are NOT trained in infectious diseases. Yet it didn't stop some chiropractors, including two BC College of Chiropractors board members, from taking an antivax stance on social media. Both promptly deleted their antivax post after being reminded of the college policy. And one vice-chair has resigned after posting a video claiming a smoothie is more effective than a flu shot at preventing flu.

So where are such regulations or policies in the US?

MLM Genre Analysis: CBD products have HUGE risks not understood by participants

Some of the more recent MLMs have latched onto CBD, or cannabidiol as their next big thing, and several companies have started selling products based on CBD oil for topical and other uses. However, what those people failed to consider is CBD is NOT legal in all 50 states. That's right, holding CBD oil in certain states can get you arrested for drug possession, which can RUIN YOUR LIFE!

Fact: DEA considers CBD oil as a schedule I controlled substance, with ONE exception

DEA considers CBD oil "marijuana extract" and remains on schedule I (same as cocaine and heroin). DEA has allowed a specific formulation, containing less than 0.1% THC, and approved by the FDA, to be reclassified Schedule V. This happened in October 2018.

This is often misquoted by CBD advocates as "DEA legalized CBD" when nothing of the sort took place.

With that said, DEA has bigger fish to fry, like the opioid epidemic. But it's illegal. And if your state law enforcement wants to bust you, it can, as a man in Indiana found out. He was arrested for possessing CBD oil and prosecutors chose not to charge him because the state legislature made CBD legal AFTER his arrest.

How to Combat Falsehoods: It's NOT a matter of opinion or being neutral!

As a skeptic, it is often troubling to see the amount of bogosity available in public, much less the Internet, where anyone with some free time can offer advice, and many people just eat them up, with absolutely zero due diligence about the veracity of the information received. It doesn't help when social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on help (inadvertently) spread the misinformation.

Recently, a post on Slate documented how the subreddit /r/askHistorians struggle to control the deliberate misinformation campaign by Holocaust deniers, and how social media, afraid of lawsuits, basically left them to say ANYTHING they wanted. Fortunately, that subreddit has a crew of volunteer moderators that use the banhammer when it was called for.

And what they found about Holocaust deniers applies to ALL sorts of deniers, such as antivaxxers, pyramid scheme and ponzi scheme proponents, and so on. You should go read the article yourself, as I will only be discussing their findings.  Deniers generally use these tactics:

1) Cite bogus experts who are proven to have ignored facts that did not fit their narrative, or experts who had nothing to do with their field, but merely sympathetic to their field.

Holocaust deniers cite David Irving and Fred Leuchter

Antivaxxers cite Andrew Wakefield, Bob Sears, and Mercola.

Scam proponents cite their own leader(s) or uplines

2) Cite minor mistakes in citings and frame it as "Just Asking Questions"

Otherwise known as "JAQing off", this technique requires a lot of effort to dispell since there are an infinite amount of details they can focus on while sounding earnest, usually by leaving out the context of the question.

Holocaust deniers deny fundamental facts about the Holocaust, such as the number of deaths, whether Nazis have a campaign of extermination, and so on.

Antivaxxers are well known to deny that vaccines work at all, whether vaccines have eradicated most infectious diseases, and even deny that some infectious diseases are deadly.

Scam proponents are well known to deny their scheme is a scam, often even AFTER the scam had been shut down by authorities. They will often deny pyramid scheme by obfuscating-conflating it with "pyramid organization".

Attempting to engage them by doing the research does not appease them, but instead, waste a TON of time. They are NOT interested in the facts. Their questions, seemingly innocent, casts doubt on the facts: "if they didn't get this 100% right, what else did they get wrong?"

Scam Spotting: Anatomy of a "free" premium headphones offer

Ever seen those offers: we're giving away (insert item) as a promotion, all you need to do is pay shipping and handling?

Let's dissect one and see how it really works.

Recently, someone brought this to reddit.com/r/scams attention. In the interest of NOT giving them any link juice, all names will be redacted, but you can easily figure it out.  Here's a screenshot of the top of their giveaway page.

They claim to be giving away all sorts of headsets and headphones for FREE. The catch is you'll need to pay about $13USD per item for shipping and handling.

However, are these headphones REALLY worth as much as they say? The answer is no. NOT EVEN CLOSE. Let's take that first headphone for example. They said "save $80", implying MSRP is $80.

Well, let's do a bit of digging via Google image search, and we got a $3 headset:

Oh, myyyyy. It's the EXACT SAME headset. For $2.99 with free shipping.  These headphones are NOT worth $80. They're not even worth $8. It's worth $3.00

Now you see why they are charging $13. For every order, they pocket $10, while making people believe they are getting something for cheap.

Let's pick another item, just to make a point.

An LED light that cleans air? Nope, just marked up 10X LED bulbs

A company called "Pure-Light" claimed their TiO2 coated bulbs will clean the air...

...of these bacteria, viruses, mold, and pollutants. The air also gets deodorized as well since almost all odors are an organic compound. There is also a secondary PURE-LIGHT effect on the surfaces of items near the light bulb, such as kitchen/bathroom counters, dishes, stoves, cutting boards, door knobs, etc.  

But what is this "PURE-LIGHT effect"? It was never defined. It got only worse from there.

The two special super oxygen molecules Pure-Light bulbs produce are called SUPEROXIDE (O-2) and HYDROXYL ION (HO). These two super oxygen molecules provide a triple "action"... two actions against viruses and bacteria, and another "action" against VOCs.

Uh... O2 is just "oxygen". Calling it "superoxide" is just using bogus jargon. What's worse, their own diagram called it something else: "super oxygen" (right below the word "how")

There is no such thing as "super oxygen". The only place you'll find the term used frequently is at woo news sites such as "naturalnews" where the term is often used to refer to ozone (O3) as if it is better than oxygen.

Indeed, Pure-Light claimed that white blood cell works... by feeding bad things extra oxygen... which is NONSENSE!

SUPEROXIDE (O-2), or SUPER OXYGEN, is actually produced in the human body in large quantities by White Blood cells and is used by the immune system to kill invading microorganisms. ​Superoxide (O-2) inside the body, or in the air, combines with a microorganism giving it essentially a boost of oxygen. Good cells thrive with the extra oxygen while viruses and bacteria are killed by the extra oxygen. Superoxides are also used in firefighters' oxygen tanks and divers rebreather systems in order to provide a readily available source of oxygen.

White blood cells actually ingest the bad cells through a process called phagocytosis, and once the cells and virus are "eaten", they are digested with enzymes. Oxygen had nothing to do with it!

Scam Tactics: How Easy It Is To Fool Experts and Review Sites, or allow them to fool you

Recently, there's an article at Vice.com, where the author decided to play a hoax on TripAdvisor... They created a FAKE restaurant, which is a picnic table in the back of the author's house, created some FAKE entrees (you'll laugh at the ingredients), got some FAKE reviews through burner phones and whatnot, and got it to be the top-rated restaurant in London... a restaurant that does NOT exist.

I won't spoil the method, let's just say, it's easier than you think.

This wasn't the first prank the author, Oobah Butler, had done. Previously he bullsh*tted his way onto Paris Fashion Week and it was absolutely brilliant. But he's hardly the first to prank experts and succeded.

But then, expert reviews are fooled all the time.  In 2008, wine critic and author Robin Goldstein created a fake restaurant, allegedly stocked with the worst wines Wine Spectator magazine had ever rated. The submitted it to the said magazine. After a while, the fake restaurant had won "award of excellence" by the same magazine.

Wine Spectator called it "publicity seeking stunt", but it exposes something deeply troubling... What sort of experts at the magazine review the candidate for "award of excellence"?  And if they let a fake restaurant get on, what can DELIBERATE manipulation do?

But the pattern ran much much deeper than that. Experts are fooled ALL THE TIME.

• TV host displayed a $15 IKEA print in an art museum, and none of the art experts spotted the problem. 
• The Wine Spectator gag had a sequel... a French scientist decided to die a white wine red and gave it to 54 wine science students. NONE could detect they are tasting a white wine.  
• Food experts cannot tell McDonalds chicken McNuggets from "organic" chicken nuggets. In fact, people cannot tell organic fruit from non-organic fruit

And the problem doesn't stop there. There are review and authority websites that secretly signs under-the-table deals with crooks to promote or write nice articles without any disclosure. And this had been a long-standing problem in network marketing.

DADA Loop: Data / Analysis / Decision / Action and the MLM mind

How do you make decisions?  It's usually a 4 step process:

1. Gather Data

2. Analyze Data

3. Decide on Action

4. Perform the action

This is pretty obvious to most people. Military call it the OODA loop, civilians called it DADA loop (data, analysis, decision, action), but it's the same thing.

So how can this loop go wrong?  EVERY one of the four steps can go wrong.

• One can gather the WRONG data (victim of deception or bad data gathering)
• One can fail to analyze data objectively (by ignoring good data)
• One can fail to decide on any action (stalled loop)
• One can fail to perform the action correctly.

Let's see how MLMer reacts to these steps.

The Difference Between Skeptical People and Toxic Negative People

When one searches on the internet (through Google, Bing, or any other search engine), one often comes across MLM minded articles, and so many of them are touting "no negativity". In fact, heaps of articles are online about how to deal with negativity. Some may even quote 'studies' that claimed successful people avoid negative people. Some of the articles are actually relatively accurate, but many of them are just outrageously wrong.

One website used this definition:

Negative people are friends, family, strangers, associates, or prospects that talk badly, or in a non-positive way about your dreams, goals and how you plan on accomplishing them.

Why would people be positive about your dreams, goals, or potential accomplishments? Your friends and family will probably support you just because they know you. But why should ANYONE ELSE care? It would be up to you to convince them.

The same author went on to describe techniques on how to overcome the resistance of the prospect... Though prospect here means a potential recruit into the organization, not a prospect for a sale. But that's not the problem.

Another author claimed that negativity comes from lazy people who can't profit easily from MLM and create a rant blog about it, then went on to use "pyramid // pyramid scheme" obfuscation to deflect the criticism. It was a classic diversionary tactic.

Both suffer from a fundamental problem of lumping in all criticism, including skepticism, as "negativity".

And if you can't tell legitimate questions from insults, you can never improve your situation.

Scam Hilarity: Suspect ponzi claims to be mining bitcoin w/ perpetual motion engine

Woo, short for woo-woo, is a term used to describe something that is completely implausible, yet explained with pseudo-scientific and potentially-plausible jargon that can fool innocent sheeple. You can encounter woo in all sorts of places, and most of the time they do no harm. However, when they show up in medicine and finance, they can do quite a bit of harm indeed. And today, we'll discuss the a new wrinkle... physical woo on top of financial woo.

But let me start from the beginning.

HYIP, or "high yield investment program" is a form of ponzi scheme that promised impossibly high yields. Claimed returns like 1% per day is not uncommon.

Some of them are pretty transparent in being a scheme, while others may adopt weasel language like "crowdfunding" or "charity". Yet others turn to woo explanations for their ability to pay such high yields that makes absolutely no sense when examined in detail. Frankly, it failed to pass the smell test... If they have techniques that can reliably generate such income, just put down a mortgage or borrow X dollars from credit card or bank, and they'll make it back in no time. Right? Yet there have been, for decades, schemes that attempt to explain their ability to generate such returns, with bogus excuses such as "bridge loans" [DOJ], "P2P lending" [CNBC], "forex" [DOJ], "arbitrage" [wikipedia], "penny auctions" [CBSnews], "prime bank" [SEC] and so on.

The latest buzzword is cryptocurrency, and it's no wonder ponzi schemes have latched onto it as the latest craze, by incorporating something people who have heard of, but do not understand, as their woo. Some launch their own cryptocurrency (that nobody would ever use), yet others latch onto the idea of cryptomining, the idea that you can "mine" bitcoin and other currencies.

While cryptomining is real, it is hard to make money in such because the hardware to mine and the electricity to run them, not to mention cooling, are expensive as well. It may be possible to run such in China and Eastern Europe, where electricity is cheap (by government mandate) and hardware and labor are cheap, esp. if one exploit scale by running massive crypto-mine.

So the latest crypto-woo is launched by a company called USI-Tech, which used to be Forex HYIP (see above), but they've since switched to Cryptomining as their new woo. Recently in London, they've shown their latest "innovation"... they can create "virtually FREE energy" to run their cryptomining machines.

USI-Tech claims they can create "virtually free energy",
but they only want to run cryptomining rigs with it

Perpetual motion machine doesn't exist, as it violates law of thermodynamics. Yet there are plenty of kooks who claim they made one, or claim the knowledge was suppressed by the evil government or energy consortiums or something. Though you had to admit, using one to power cryptomining is rather cute.

But what does this thing look like?

MLM History: Weight Loss, DMCA Abuse, and Child Porn, Oh My

Weight loss industry is a 60 BILLION dollar business (2013 figure) and it's no surprise there are a lot of various unproven claims from companies that sell magic weight loss formulas, each with its own claims how its own secret ingredient can help you lose weight through some semi-plausible mechanism. Frankly, all of them are bull****. The more you diet and exercise, the more your body adjusts to counteract your efforts. Most of the contestants in "The Biggest Loser" gain back all the weight they lost in a few years, despite all attempts to keep off the weight.

Consumers are getting wise to the various weight loss woos, and the entire diet industry is seeing a slow down, no doubt helped along by magic claims such as "alternative" to gastric bypass surgery by simply swallowing something. That company is called Roca Labs.

To quote the FTC director of Bureau of Consumer Protection, "Roca Labs Has An Adversarial Relationship With The Truth". And that's only the beginning.  (for a complete list, see TechDirt's Roca Labs coverage)

They claimed their product has a 90 percent success rate. In fact, they conducted no trials or clinical studies with their own products.

They offer 50% discount to people who videotape their "success stories", but did not tell people to disclose that they were compensated for such stories.

They operated a website that showed dangers of gastric bypass, with a page that links to selling Roca Labs products, without disclosing they actually own and run the website.

They have a "gag clause" in their contract that if you buy their stuff, you are contractually prohibited from saying anything negative about them for ever and to anybody including review sites and even BBB. And they have sued such customers.

They also claim if you say bad things about them, they'll rescind any discounts you've been given and they'll sue you for the difference. (!)

They tried to sue pissedconsumer.com to shut down negative comments left by members. (They lost)

They threaten to sue the witnesses at their trial for violating the unenforceable gag clause, in a clear case of witness tampering, threaten to sue the other party's expert witness and threatened him with criminal violations, as well as sue the other party's lawyer for statements made in court.

They tried to use DMCA takedown to hide criticism against them

They threaten to sue TechDirt (twice) for reporting on the above egregious behavior, including once from merely QUOTING the lawsuit.

They claimed their opposing lawyer had bribed a state senator into passing the anti-SLAPP law of Nevada which hindered their SLAPP lawsuit. (It was dismissed)

How to spot truth in sea of lies, rumors and myths

Spotted this in the Lifehacker archives (originally published 2012) but it's still relevant

The internet is full of crap. For every piece of reputable information you'll find countless rumors, misinformation, and downright falsehoods. Separating truth from fiction is equal parts a mental battle and diligent research. Here's how to make sure you never get duped.

As long as words are hitting the page, news and facts are filtered through someone. Sometimes this is a ludicrous rumor that somehow morphs into a fact, or even just a small tip that doesn't work at all. Filtering out the junk from the facts is hard, but it's not impossible.

http://lifehacker.com/5950871/how-to-spot-truth-in-the-sea-of-lies-rumors-and-myths-on-the-internet

Overpromise and Underdeliver: the HELO band

Those of you who have diabetes or pre-diabetes may have been spammed on Facebook or similar social media sites by someone marketing the HELO band. At first look, it is basically something like a Fitbit or such. However, it had promised in Jan 2017 something that had never been achieved by anyone: non-invasive continuous blood glucose estimation. See press release dated Jan 10, 2017.

PRNewswire press release from WRMT where it claimed it will
launch blood glucose estimation tech in its "Helo" wellness band
dated Jan 10th, 2017

However, it is interesting to note that NO SUCH FEATURE was mentioned on World's official website, worldgn.com

worldgn.com shows no blood sugar feature on their HELO device as of JUN-28-2017

Now isn't that interesting...

Commentary: How "Ultimate Guide to Network Marketing" illustrates what's wrong with Network Marketing

I often browse used bookstores, and one day I came across "Ultimate Guide to Network Marketing" edited by Dr. Paul Rubino. As the MLM Skeptic, I read it with a skeptical mind...  Overall, I am rather... disappointed. While several of the authors out of 37 did dispense practical advice, such as how to utilize modern tech like autoresponder and such, while others laid out do's and don'ts on what to say in a sales speech, ZERO discussed what's legal and what's not legal.

"Pyramid scheme" was NEVER discussed, other than as an resistance to be overcome, as doubt in a prospect that must be quashed, and so on.

Product-based pyramid scheme was never mentioned.

In fact, the entire book is devoid of definitions other than odd backronyms like WOO = window of opportunity. There is no glossary, just an index.

Consider the implication: how would the network marketing noob know what's legal and what's not if it was NOT discussed in a so-called "Ultimate Guide to Network Marketing"? How "ultimate" can this guide be if legal stuff was not discussed at all?

Furthermore, many of the chapters were about belief / faith. Belief in oneself, belief in product, belief in company, belief in team...  Belief involves TRUST. What happened to due diligence? Common sense? What makes the company, product, or team members WORTHY of trust?

This is basically a collection of "business porn"... written by network marketing "leaders" who claimed success through effort even though they can't prove that their success was a result of their effort. Anything they wrote are results of survivorship bias and self-serving bias, but people starting in network marketing believe these to be words of wisdom, and indeed, many of the 37 articles advocate "just ape what I do" or "create system that can be easily aped"

In fact, one article is about how to CREATE business porn... awards, recognitions, newsletters, mailing lists, podcasts, Youtube videos, and so on, as marketing vehicles.

Would you really consider "monkey see, monkey do" to be wisdom?  The entire book is thin on actual practical advice. Most are motivational talk and how to customize such for your particular market (i.e. your prospects). Again, it's business porn, and it does NOT help.

Just as porn is not sex but sexual fiction designed to titillate, business porn is NOT business advice, but sales pitch designed to motivate.  Porn is fine in moderate doses, but porn addiction is serious problem. Similarly, business porn is fine in moderate doses, but business porn addiction will simply depress you as you constantly choose to compare yourself to leaders, trying to ape them, without understanding WHAT made them successful (often, it's just luck) and what price did they pay (which is NOT depicted).

The book basically is all about trust, and duplication, with a few bits of sales techniques and marketing vehicles covered, but has ZERO advice on what to look for, how to spot good from bad, and how to spot legal from illegal.

The implication is very troubling: if this is the sort of book written by top network marketing professionals, network marketing is about faith and recruiting, not about sales and earning trust.

Mythbusting: The Trump University is based on (some) bogus research

Trump University was in the news a lot, and it seems it may be the only thing that really got Trump riled up, as it's something he can't deny or denigrate... since it's his own. So instead, he denigrated everybody else... including the judge, which lead to furious denunciation by Republican leadership, who are put between the rock and the hard place of "supporting" their presumptive nominee WHILE wondering WTF happened that lead to this guy winning. The furor was so loud even Trump himself furiously backpedaled, claiming his comments were "misconstrued".

But we know EXACTLY what you mean, Mr. Trump.

In digging through some info about the Trump University, I came across its sales playbook dug up by Politico a while back. And it has some interesting information in it. Basically, they don't talk to the media, they don't let the lecturers over promise (any such incidents are reported to main office), and they will use psychological pressure to push you into buying their more expensive courses...

Including a bogus urban myth, such as "most persuasive words... from Yale University"

On page 99 of the document, you can find this:

Trump University Playbook, as posted by Politico.com, see URL on top

The important part says:

The most persuasive words in the English language according to a study by the Psychology Department of Yale University are:  You, New, Money, Easy, Discovery, Free, Results, Health, Save, Proven, Guarantee, and Love

Except there was no such study. This is an urban legend.

Scam Tactics: Indignantly imply everybody else is wrong i.e. Nerium Proponent's Comment Dissected

skepticism, skeptical inquiry, critical thinking,
critical inquiry, and truth-seeking. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you see a random claim, do you simply accept it as is, or do you adopt the Reagan doctrine: "Trust, but verify"?  A skeptic uses the latter.

Indeed, scam tactics often simply deny everything, randomly make some claims, and claimed to be outraged at the lack of facts presented.

Recently I came across this comment by a Nerium proponent. I am going to number the claims (i.e. sentences that appear to be factual, not merely an opinion), and let's verify each one.

Get your facts correct please. Nerium sold at Sears was counterfeit. (1) You will no longer find it there. (2)
The extract itself, NAE-8 is patented. (3) Look it up. Do a tiny bit of research on Jeff Olson (4) (you’ll kick yourself for your ignorance).
The before & afters are from its distributors. (5) One bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch & that apple was taken care of (6) – & others warned.
Most importantly, results from the night treatment are published in the peer-reviewed literature. (7) Try looking up the Journal of Aging, Science, Jr of Clinical & Investigative Dermatology, etc…… (8)
The patented extract is the first superantioxidant on the planet. Look it up. (9)
Please don’t confuse searching with research! Try it, you might just learn something new!

Claim 1: Was Nerium sold at Sears counterfeit?

As we have not seen this listed ANYWHERE (search for Nerium + Sears just brings up similar night creams) we'll have to say "unverifiable", as we have nothing to show either true, or false.

UNSUPPORTED CLAIM, BUSTED

Claim 2: Is Nerium sold at Sears?

Nope, nothing there.

TRUE (but inconsequential, how often have you seen MLM products in retail? Never!)

Claim 3: Is NAE-8 patented?

Nope, NAE-8 is a registered trademark, not a patent. Nerium appears to hold at least two patents on how to extract oleander and aloe, but NAE-8 is not "patented", just trademarked as "non-medicated skin care preparation ingredient" under cosmetics.

BUSTED!

Claim 4: Is there anything surprising on Jeff Olson?

Searching for Jeff Olson shows that he used to ran People's Network, a Self-Improvement TV Channel, that got bought by Prepaid Legal in 1997ish, and he became Prepaid Legal's CEO in 1999. In 2001 PL was hit by Wyoming Attorney General with charges of illegal income claims, then SEC also hit Prepaid Legal for misclaiming expenses as assets (i.e. inflating its financial situation). PL was sued hundreds of times in Missouri, won a few, lost more, decided to settle the remaining 400+ cases. Then things were quite until 2009, when both FTC and SEC subpoenaed some documents for fact-finding missions. In 2011 PL was bought out and reorganized, and Olson left (or was forced out) and started Nerium.

Nothing too surprising, or worthy of emulation, IMHO. Got lucky and got acquired, had to wield whip on sales force to keep them in line, and got forced out during corporate shuffle.

HALF-TRUE