Hi Lew, I believe your post hit the nail on the head. I look back on my IPM obsession, and shake my head in wonder. I believe I now know how an ex-member of a cult feels...
Anyway, I personally took a huge hit financially, which I am only now coming out of, and only because I recently scored big on a case in my office. Until then, the financial aspect of my life has been a real nail-biter. I know there were others who were hurt even worse than me, for whom the impact on their lives was even greater. I just hope that they were able to get past this, and learn from it. After all, that which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Funny how this thread is. After the frenzied, coked-out, after bar party that this thread was a couple of years ago, it's like we are all now in treatment, attending an IPM group therapy session. Christ, I remember posts ranging from elaborate plans for building a mine, to raging debates with Zeev over water costs, to endless quibbling over the meaning of a semicolon in one of IPM's press releases from two years earlier. I admit that I did my share of this chatter (remember my poem? I believe this was my personal low point), because I was completely caught up in the "us vs. them" dynamic that pervaded this thread. Whether or not this perception was created intentionally as part of a larger effort to defraud us, we drank it greedily, and used it to dismiss every opinion that was not lustily supportive of our company. Even the slightest criticism was decried as subsidized by the forces of evil that were defaming our stock; anyone raising even a reasonable question was eventually drummed out of here as a "shill" for the "shorts." In fact, the way our twisted logic worked, the more reasonable-sounding a critic, the more likely that he was being financed by these sophisticated, "well-heeled" market makers.
Whether there was any truth to this, I do not know. Nor do I care. What bothers me is that I allowed myself to be taken in by it, and that I participated in this mob mentality that led me, and many others, to march off the cliff, singing IPM's praises the entire way.
You are absolutely right: the evidence that we were being duped was there, right in front of us, all the while. People will ultimately believe whatever they want to believe, no matter how smart, sophisticated, or rich they may be. I sympathize with those, like me, who were taken; and I applaud those who warned us off, regardless of their motives at the time. Because the fact of the matter is, had I listened to, say, Walter, who I did NOT want to believe at the time, rather than the people who I DID want to believe, my losses would have been much, much less. An expensive lesson to learn; but, at least I learned it.
I am glad you have moved on; it sounds like you are now doing what you are truly good at. For my part, I am certainly much more productive now, focusing on practicing law. And much happier. I do occasionally post on other threads, but it is more to idly bitch about stocks that I know in my heart are probably lost causes (like Maxam, for example), than for anything else. In other words, I now use SI for entertainment. And if one of my few lingering gold exploration company stocks suddenly takes off "to the moon" before it goes belly-up like IPM, well, I will be just as surprised as anybody. And then I will sell my stock in that company. All of it.
Best regards, Otter |
