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Tamny for Holmes

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John Tamny has written about the Theranos "Bad Blood" case for the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) and seems to have gotten it utterly wrong. He thinks one ought to stand up for Elizabeth Holmes out of some admiration for heroic entrepreneurship.

Sorry, but Holmes is the kind of crook who gives the ideal of heroic entrepreneurship a bad name.

Every securities fraudster, when caught blames the losses of his victims on the fact that he got caught.  It is a very old and very tired line.

I might tell you, dear reader, that I have an algorithm that allows me to take advantage of inefficiencies on the onion futures exchanges. I might take your money, transfer it to my Swiss back account, and then with every appearance of broken heartedness, tell you that my well-intentioned scheme went awry. We lost your money. Those darned unreliable onion futures exchanges.

If I'm caught, though (perhaps by authorities who are aware that there are no onion futures exchanges) I have another excuse. I could have made money on onion futures (through over-the-counter trades -- you didn't think I was serious when I said 'exchanges' did you?) I will say, "Damnation! Being busted interrupted my deal. I was just about to get that algorithm to work and pay everybody involved their principal AND a nice profit.)

It is always crap and always irrelevant, yet that is what Tamny is saying.

Bah.
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