He figured he would act as a crusader and be a RAT whenever it served HIS purpose
I don't know enough to refute or support that statement, but it's not incompatible with my belief that he identified scams and profited by doing so, as do many others, and as do those of us who hope we've identified good companies to invest in. We tend to buy or sell companies for our own interests; specifically profit.
But the statement that he is a "rat whenever it served his purpose" begs an obvious question: Was he right? Did anyone keep score or perhaps would anyone want to do so after the fact using our Advanced Search?
I think it's relevant, but it obviously wasn't relevant to the government, whether he was simply a self- (and others-) serving rat, or a *lying* one. Huge difference, IMO.
Without getting into specifics, since I'm sure I can't, I know that there was a fishing expedition looking for *anyone* on this site who'd ever posted negatively about any of a huge list of tickers. It was an impossible task and the fishermen were duly informed as much.
But what I found particularly interesting was that the huge list contained familiar tickers. Ones I knew off the top of my head had been halted by the SEC, never to trade again. I was familiar with so many of them because they'd been at the center of TofU-violating flamewars right here. Flamewars that Tony was often involved in because he was calling the companies scams.
I randomly pulled up quotes for about a dozen of the listed stocks. All but one or two had no quotes or came back as bad tickers.
So, at a glance, it looked like most of the stocks he'd called scams had proven themselves to be so.
I don't know Tony as well as you do, but I've dealt with him enough to feel like I can have an opinion about him.
My take has always been that he was prone to hyperbole at times, like when he tore into James Cramer, an individual for whom I have *enormous* respect. I still remember a classic post of his (deleted?) in which he said that he'd someday employ Mr. Cramer to gnaw his lawn.
I'd come to feel that Tony would write very negatively about companies or people if he believed he was right. I think the last posts he ever wrote to or about me were ones in which he railed against both me and iHub, and the word "scam" got used. He was wrong, but I think he honestly believed he was right. I briefly thought that perhaps his negative posts about me and iHub were because he was getting ready to ramp up a competing site, but decided that didn't fit my perception of him. I don't mind if people rail against me when they believe they're right and they don't lie when doing so. We're all entitled to our opinions. I remember sommmeone who also very loudly complained about me, but intentionally used lies and half-truths to support their position. I can't respect that. But I respected Tony's opinion about me, though I knew for a fact that he was wrong. Why? Because he offered negative opinions that he apparently *thought* were true. Big difference.
But I digress, as usual.
What I'm really curious about is what percentage of companies he ever referred to as "scams" turned out to be scams. 80% or higher wouldn't surprise me at all.
A huge list of companies that I'm sure would still be trading and would be used as vehicles for hypesters to steal the money of the foolish or less experienced.
So, if he called a company a scam or POS or whatever and said so only to profit from a short position, without really believing what he was saying about the companies, that'd be wrong.
I see nothing wrong with identifying a company you think is a scam, shorting it, then publicly saying "Hey, look what I just found!" Same thing as finding a gem, buying it, and telling everyone what a gem it is.
I think this whole sordid affair raises deeper philosophical issues. Ones I'm not mentally equipped to work out on my own. Like whether, his own profits aside, did he do more harm or more good on the aggregate. I think the latter. And it doesn't count on the "harm" side of the ledger if a cheerleader or tout or fool lost money because they'd invested in a company Tony had correctly identified as a scam or at least way overvalued.
Overall, I think the investment community as a whole gained in a huge way from his presence and I'm glad that people like him (and many others) wave red flags when appropriate because the SEC certainly can't or won't on its own. And, pretty much by definition, once the SEC moves to prevent investor harm, most of the damage has already been done.
Far better for the open-eyed investor to sell at a loss when individuals raise red flags than to lose 100% of their investment when the SEC says "This is a scam and nobody can buy or sell it anymore."
IMO, the SEC and FBI steam-rollered one of their biggest benefactors. If he did illegal things while helping the SEC, FBI, and investors at large, yes, he should be punished. If lying to line his own pockets isn't part of the list of things he did wrong, then I think the amount of good he did (as measured by how often he correctly shined the light on scams, and his always-present sermons about resource management) should be taken into account when determining what that punishment should be.
All the above said, I still have a real problem with this "extortion" charge. I just can't see any way to make that one stick, even by just applying simple logic.
If he really did demand payment from companies he thought were scams in return for keeping his mouth shut, then I hope he enjoys a long stay at Club Fed, because as a whistle-blower, he assumed the responsibility of *always* blowing the whistle when he saw a foul. To remain silent while knowingly watching investors being bilked would be just as bad as touting scam stocks. Accepting/demanding payment to do so would be worse.
And there certainly are an enormous number of people who've done that and escaped prosecution -- they weren't famous enough to be worthy feathers in anyone's cap.
As I said before, the only person I saw publicly claim to have been extorted by Tony was a CEO who, if they said the sky was blue, I'd have to look out the window to make sure it wasn't actually red.
I've a sneaking suspicion the extortion charge was made to stick based on the say-so of penny-stock CEO's, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that they're the CEO's of no-longer-trading companies. So it's the part of the case that I'm most eager to learn the details of.
Oh, and to the person who said basically that Pluvia and Tony were bedmates, that's not my recollection, although it's ancient enough history that I don't remember the details well. But what I remember is that Pluvia and Tony were the "cat and dog" of SI. Sure, they both liked to expose scams, and as such they likely encountered the same scams a time or two, but there was a LOT of bad blood between the two of them, the details of which are sketchy and irrelevant to me.
So, I can't disagree with you, slave, because I apparently don't know Tony as well as you do, but what I know of Tony is that he's a person who saved a lot of people from themselves, hurt a lot of touts, crooked CEO's, and their ilk, and was a bit of an asshole, and I had to suspend him many times for that and even terminated his account at one point. He seemed to occasionally think he was above the site's rules, and had to be reined in, and maybe that "above the rules" mindset carried over into other aspects of his life, but I don't know.
Overall, based on what I know of him, I like him and am grateful for the countless dollars he saved others and for being the best educator to come down the pike when it comes to teaching people to include skepticism as an important investment tool.
All of the above my opinion and as such, I reserve the right to be wrong. But I don't think I am. |
