Carl Icahn Is Mulling a Bid For Herbalife http://fortune.com/2016/09/13/herbalife-carl-icahn-takeover/
Dude, it's about sales. It's no different then the vendors on this site that sell dreams to people like you. Yes, you too can learn to make billions with a ruler drawing trend lines or whatever else the vendors here are pitching. You can choose to buy it or not. HLF and most other MLM sell products. As I said before, most of them are not selling anything you can't buy anywhere else. It's a distribution network. If someone wants to buy supplements from the guy above them, then they give that guy money and that guy gives you supplements. Why is this so hard to understand. Look, the dream of making millions is bullshit obviously. But you can say the same thing about trading or any other dream that people pitch to you. You don't have to buy into it. No one is forcing you. There is a fine line between letting people have free will to do stupid shit and having a nanny state that is out to protect you. Do you think the gov't should limit the leverage in these FX bucket shops? Or should people be allowed to decide their own leverage? If you want to protect people from MLM then we might as well also protect them from trading as well. God knows you can lose a lot more money trading then you can buying a few hundred bucks of worthless supplements.
No shame in calling something what it truly is. If you simply said that you profited from it but now realize what the business model truly is, even though it would be after the fact, I would still give you the benefit of the doubt that you, like many others, entered it "hoping" there is nothing wrong and that it is all about the product sold in the end (which it is not). But since you still claim "just because... it doesn't make it a scam" and, instead of being sorry you were part of it, you regret how much more money would you make if you only stayed with that company longer, tells me that, unfortunately, you're not that far from other low life thugs willing to profit from tricking unsuspected others. I would find it easier to hear a drug dealer's explanation that he didn't do anything wrong since after all he was providing what others needed/asked for, and that if not him, there would be someone else providing it. On the bright side, you're not part of it anymore and there is always time to turn around your life and do something good to make up for it.
Just to be clear: I've got noting against, sir. Perhaps you're a good trader and I enjoy when you talk about that (trading) but you moral compass seems to be... way off. Please see my comment above to OP. Based on what you say, it would be easier to justify dealing drugs because of a "free will" of the buyers. It's not about taking business risk in order to make money, whether by buying merchandise to resell, or buying financial courses/software/service to use or not. It is about tricking people that they are buying product of any value when in fact they are entering into pyramid scheme instead. This whole business is based on dumping LOADS of worthless inventory into hands of TRICKED and unsuspected others down the road/chain so they either become part of it or victims of it. Flush and repeat/replace with others. Why do even mention that they "are not selling anything you can't buy anywhere else"? We are not talking about other companies/products that you can buy off the shelf or other scamming companies in general. This is EXACTLY why they sell the way they do as they wouldn't succeed otherwise and deserve to be called a scam and as a result be shut down. When people talk about world "in general" they tend to find excuses and overlook particular problems. So instead of generalizing, why not focusing on subject at hand and talk about that particular company and what they do. You will find it easier to call their BS. Something is moral or immoral REGARDLESS the fact that there are others doing the same or whether gov't should/could/would successfully protect general population from the harm.
Yes I trade but what does it have to do with Hebalife? Stop focusing on other things in life and focus on subject at hand. Besides, as someone that claims is a trader, your entire post makes very little sense. No one in this tread is moralizing about winning/losing in trading. Being part of financial markets means providing a valuable service (liquidity, risk transfer). Whether it is comforting to you or not is irrelevant, as well as if you profit from it or not. As I said in my reply to Maverick, IMO people tend to generalize a lot and try to turn your focus to something else when they want to justify their own actions or messed up moral compass. It's interesting how most like to say that there is plenty of gray in between life, when in reality they just don't men up to make black&white choices that they should. It doesn't surprise me though: the toughest path is usually the hardest to follow for most.
I was addressing a specific point in your post, which is why I quoted only that. "The point is that to make money, instead of selling a valuable product to the society you have to find enough people that will end up stuck with it." In the markets I'm not producing anything or providing any service, and loads of people get stuck with positions they bought or sold at the wrong price. That's where my profits come from, and since you trade, your profits too. If I were to claim my FX activity adds liquidity to facilitate international trade, you would have every right to question my sanity. In a market that's worth $4-$5 trillion a day, my positions are like dust. Providing liquidity, risk transfer are all sops to a conscience that can't face up to the reality of what we do. So why moralise about Herbalife when we profit from people making mistakes? Every time we are happy or satisfied with a winning trade, there is someone out there hurt by it.
You clearly don't have a clue what MLM is. MLM is a pipedream for sure as is trading for most people. But where are you getting this "selling worthless inventory" from? Most MLM companies sell real products. Whether its cleaning supplies, toilet paper, food items, etc. Yes their toilet paper works fine I'm sure. No one is getting tricked. My God, spare me your crap. You know I use to waste my time on the Topstep Trader here in the prop forum where guys made that exact same argument. That TST was a scam and that traders were being tricked into signing up. The fact is, those traders paid money for a service. The fact that they failed did not make it a scam. The fact that it's hard does not make it a scam. The fact that most traders fail does not make it a scam. Yet all these yahoos were on there crying out, it's a scam! No, it's not a scam. I swear, for a website that prides itself on free market capitalism, there sure are a lot of people here that don't believe in free markets. Oh, and please, spare me your "providing liquidity as a valuable service" crap.
Implied Volatility Surging for Herbalife (HLF) Stock Options April 17, 2017 https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/256463/implied-volatility-surging-for-herbalife-hlf-stock-options
Well, would you say that pay-day loans or life settlements are ok too then? They certainly are in the spirit of free market and all that stuff.