To some, Theranos lawsuit shows scary side of buying stock in private companies

W.J. Feathermaker III said:
This sort of thing escapes detection, I suppose, due to the cycle in the marketplace...Most of the famous cases of fraud occur AFTER the major bull market and during the 'scapegoat phase' of the cycle..i.e. the Enron's, Worldcom's and of course Madoff and other assorted stuff that is "uncovered" when the sentiment shifts to assigning blame for the sudden plunge in market prices...

The "bull market" hides all of the skeletons in the closet.
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You're right. I was talking about the science side of things though. Didn't Theranos fail because of faulty tests? Shouldn't have those tests been under more scientific scrutiny to begin with?
 
mlawson71 said:
You're right. I was talking about the science side of things though. Didn't Theranos fail because of faulty tests? Shouldn't have those tests been under more scientific scrutiny to begin with?
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Yes, they should have been, but we are in an age of "cronyism". The well-connected and powerful are "above the law" in many instances. Those who dare speak out are crushed by the full weight of the system.
 
W.J. Feathermaker III said:
Yes, they should have been, but we are in an age of "cronyism". The well-connected and powerful are "above the law" in many instances. Those who dare speak out are crushed by the full weight of the system.
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What age and what universe has that not been the case? I'd argue there is far less cronyism and far more transparency than any time in history, anywhere.
 
No need to argue, just point out the time and place when there wasn't any cronyism and you've made your point. If you can't defend a point why bother making it, especially when it's a rather outrageous claim.
 
Pekelo said:
"cough" Tesla/SCTY/SpaceX "cough"
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Which law was Elon Musk above in the case of these companies, exactly? We will use your example to make my point however. We all knew every possible detail about the SCTY/Tesla merger and all it's warts from any of dozens of sources that we could all read for free online. You can find out any number of minute details about SpaceX and how it's doing by reading any of dozens of comments and blogs from people who work there. That is an unprecedented level of transparency that you simply didn't have even 20 years ago and certainly not 50 years ago. In those days an investigative reporter had to both be interested enough in something and know enough about it to do some digging and you had to pay for a WSJ subscription to find out details about anything that didn't make the regular paper news. Now a dozen electric car experts, storage experts, and solar experts can dig into a merger like that and we can all get their analysis real-time from anywhere.
The internet has revolutionized information dissemination, and to claim that we're in some age of cronyism that is somehow different or worse than what we've seen in the past is not only hyperbole but just plain incorrect. Sure there is cronyism and rich people who get away with things they shouldn't. That's happened since the beginning of recorded history. There's certainly no evidence that this is somehow worse today than in the past, certainly nothing that I've seen presented here despite asking several times. I'd argue that the opposite is true, certainly I have much more visibility on what powerful people are doing than I did 20 years ago and if you don't I'd be happy to show you how easy it is to get that information.
 
It was an example for cronyism (all 3 companies are inter connected family businesses) and transparency (using non GAAP accounting, showing subscriber numbers only when it is going up, etc.)

But since I am a good sport, how about Elon insider trading SCTY stocks? He loaded up of them when he knew there was going to be a merger, but the board smartly rejected the idea first, then after the money raise voila! the board mysteriously changed its mind? Insider trading at its best...
 
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