FACEBOOK FRAUD: Conservative blogger Andy Martin says the Facebook stock sale is the greatest Wall Street scam in history

Conservative blogger Andy Martin is the Internet’s leading independent conservative investigator and analyst. Andy advocated for General Motors’ bankruptcy reorganization in 2005, years before GM succumbed. Andy is not a stock picker but in 2000 he predicted Microsoft shares had reached a plateau. Andy became the first Consumer Advocate in Cyberspace in 1995; his battles with Bill Gates became legendary. As an investigative economist Andy also monitors financial markets with over fifty years of Wall Street experience. Andy says the sale of Facebook stock is the biggest stock market scam in Wall Street history.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:



ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW YORK NEWS CONFERENCE



ATTENTION NATIONAL AND NEW YORK DAYBOOK/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS



Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin says the Facebook stock sale is the biggest scam in Wall Street history



With over fifty years of Wall Street experience Andy says Facebook stock “investors” are apparently forgetting everything they learned during the recent market collapse



Andy says that as a stock, Facebook shares are a “gamble,” not an “investment,” that are doomed to failure



(NEW YORK)(May 16, 2012) [Conservative blogger Andy Martin will hold a New York news conference today, Wednesday, May 16th to discuss the Facebook stock offering]



I come from a stock market family. I can’t give an exact date when I started monitoring Wall Street but it’s been well over fifty years. When my mom worked at United Aircraft, every day at breakfast I turned to the financial pages to see the share price of UAC. I think we had twenty-five shares or some paltry amount. In my family people talked stocks. There was no discussion of baseball or other sports. Just stocks. Penny stocks. Blue chip stocks. “Hot” stocks. I learned about all of them at a very early age.



I bought my own mutual fund shares at the age of 12 (paper route money).



My late Uncle Lucian Marcoux had survived the Depression so he was a very cautious investor. He got me hooked on reading the Wall Street Journal in high school. His dream was to visit the “Big Board,” the New York Stock Exchange. We went there in (I think) 1961. It was the “Own Your Share of American Business” era.



A lot has changed since 1961 on Wall Street, for the worse.



When it came time to open our New York management consulting office we landed close to Wall Street, in the new World Trade Center (Two WTC). I have been in the Wall Street neighborhood for a long time.



Along the way I’ve made money in the stock market. But as an economist I have always kept one eye on the exit door. I have a vivid memory of sitting downtown on Wall Street in 1973 and saying to myself it was time to dump my portfolio of “Nifty Fifty” shares. I don’t know if I made every last penny of profit, but I got out well ahead of the market collapse. My late uncle’s thought was that you never lose money by taking a profit. Good advice.



Americans went through a national crisis in 2008-2011. That calamity is still going on. Last week Chase Bank was caught gambling in the “derivatives” market and lost at least Two Billion Dollars, maybe more. People said it was “chump change” to Chase. People never learn. We are the chumps. Tens of billions of dollars of JPMorgan Chase stock market value vanished. Who lost?



Gordon Gekko is still the uncrowned king of Wall Street. “Greed is good,” he says. Says who?



Which bring me to the Facebook stock offering later this week.



Facebook seems to me to be the greatest stock scam in Wall Street history. The product (Facebook) stinks. People are being asked to “invest” in a fad which may be as ephemeral as hula hoops. Is Facebook a “powerful marketing tool?” In your dreams (see link below).



Yes, I have a Facebook account (see below). As a public figure I’m pretty much required to do so nowadays. People ask to “friend” me, although we turn down more people than we approve. We watch every name that pops up asking to be friended. We “don’t want no stinking” (Congressman) Anthony Weiner scandals on my Facebook account.



I have wanted to write about the uselessness of Facebook for over a year, but just never sat down to do the deed.



Facebook has a weak technology structure, though it has improved slightly in recent months. It is always freezing or stalling out for me. The new Facebook “format” is unintelligible. They implemented change for the sake of change. Expect more similar change. Wall Street loves change. “Investment” bankers demand it.



Wall Street is asking “investors” to “value” Facebook at over One Hundred Billion Dollars. Are we crazy? Did we learn nothing from the 2008 meltdown? One Hundred Billion Dollars of what?



“Growth stocks” have been around since the 1950’s, maybe earlier. And while investors made money with growth in earlier decades, today by the time a stock offering is priced for public sale there is no “growth” ahead, just an inflated valuation that cannot empirically keep track with future trends in the stock market. The “investment” bankers squeeze every penny they can out of the public. A great line on Wall Street, manifesting contempt for the investing public, is “Where are the customers’ yachts?” Customers are sheep, there to be sheared.



Individuals or institutions who invest in Facebook are guaranteeing themselves losses over the near term and especially over the long term. What could possibly motivate people to throw away their hard-earned cash on this latest Wall Street fad? No doubt brokerage firms will “pump and dump” the Facebook shares before Facebook eventually slips into oblivion.



When I was training to be a pilot our regular officers would caution us with the refrain “there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.”



There are old stockbrokers, and bold stockbrokers, but not many old, bold brokers. The bold ones usually flame out as thieves or fools. They become fodder for the United States Attorney’s office. Facebook is a stock only Bernie Madoff could love. In fact, in some ways Facebook is the type of imaginary stock Madoff sold to his greedy “investors.” All sail and no anchor.



On Wall Street, the greater fool theory is still a bedrock principle of marketing. When you want to sell, to whom are you going to sell? Who is the greater fool? Brokers know. Do you?



Facebook is the greatest scam in Wall Street history, just four years after an epic stock market collapse. When Facebook implodes as it inevitably must, who is going to take the blame?



I wish I knew.



Don’t let it be you.



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MAY 16TH NEW YORK NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:



WHO:



Conservative blogger and Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin



WHAT:



Andy Martin calls the Facebook stock offering the “greatest scam in Wall Street history”



WHERE:



909 Third Avenue, public sidewalk in front of FDR Station post office entrance, New York (under the “909” canopy in case of rain)



WHEN:



Wednesday, May 16th, 2012, 4:30 P.M.



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LINKS TO THIS STORY (cut and paste the entire link below and not just the underlined portion):



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SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460.html

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81743038c22Z3ZhpgeZ0Z204Z200Z62Z2&mod=

WSJ_hps_sections_business



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ABOUT ANDY:



Andy is a legendary New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, talk television pioneer, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Chicago Public Radio calls Andy a “boisterous Internet activist.” The Chicago Tribune calls him “Chicago’s own…political activist.” He has forty-four years of background in radio and television. He is the author of “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” [www.OrangeStatePress.com] and he produced the Internet film "Obama: The Hawaii’ Years” [www.BoycottHawaii.com]. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” www.ContrarianCommentary.com. He comments on regional, national and international events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience both in the USA and around the world.



Andy has been a leading corruption fighter in Illinois and American politics and courts for over forty-five years. [www.AndyMartin.com] He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com. See also www.FirstRespondersOnline.us; www.EnglishforAmerica.org



He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).



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