This isn't 23andMe where a viable product got caught up in legal fights over reporting. As I understood it, the fraudulent component here was "everything at all worthwhile about the product". Are they just a shell at this point, trying to use the team and leftover money as a basis for a new project? Do they have some existing offering which isn't totally valueless? What's happening here?
Scenario 1: I have $100 in gains this year. I owe $30 in taxes. I am left with $70. (Say $100 is 30% bracket)
Scenario 2: I have $100 in gains this year. I write off a $10 loss. (Say $90 is 25% bracket). I owe $22.5 in taxes. I am left with $67.5.
Is it the case that writing off the loss is better, if you can be bumped so far down the brackets that (gains - loss)(1-lower_tax_rate) > (gains) (1 - higher_tax_rate)?
As I understand it, Holmes controls an outright majority of the voting rights, so the question is does Holmes have anything left to gain from Theranos operating.
There's a lot of patents, via Holmes. Someone in the last Theranos thread also pointed out that whatever hardware does exist may have licensing value for other developers. The owners may be planning to part it out.
She stinks of fraud already. If she told me the fund was doing great, I would get suspicious that she was turning into the next bernie madoff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Meriwether
"A year after LTCM's collapse, in 1999, Meriwether founded JWM Partners LLC. (...) Meriwether opened his third hedge fund venture, named JM Advisors Management, also based in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 2010."
Meriwether blows up and is not a fraud. But then there's this guy:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jon-corzine-considers-launching...
Though in all fairness I don't know whether he pulled that one off.
A few months after they blew up, their portfolio was profitable again.
He didn't. In fact, that was his 2nd attempt at raising a fund.. he tried in 2012 right after mf. And he's currently working on his third attempt to raise a fund. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-18/corzine-tries-launc...
If anything, that's a pretty good example of my point.. no one wants to give their money to a fraud.
And I was a huge fan of hers (I thought she would be a good role model for my daughter) before her crimes came to light.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XBZFQR2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
It is very well reviewed.
> each a realm unto itself, run by a US Attorney who is almost untouchable by headquarters in faraway DC.
In fact, each US Attorney can be fired at will by the President. At will and not for cause. The Fed Chair can be fired but only for cause.
This leads to US Attorneys living in a very political world. They are politically appointed (Chris Christie), Senatorially confirmed (Jeff Sessions USAG) and politically removed (George W Bush). So defendants who are politically connected are not going to get prosecuted and that's that.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_co...
I'm not so sure...
So there's an open question about when he knew about this fraud. But clearly he didn't have a problem staying on even after it became public knowledge.
And there's also this:
In 2012, for instance, Holmes began talking to the Department of Defense about using Theranos’s technology on the battlefield in Afghanistan. But specialists at the D.O.D. soon uncovered that the technology wasn’t entirely accurate, and that it had not been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration. When the department notified the F.D.A. that something was amiss, according to The Washington Post, Holmes contacted Marine general James Mattis, who had initiated the pilot program. He immediately e-mailed his colleagues about moving the project forward. Mattis was later added to the company board when he retired from the service. (Mattis says he never tried to interfere with the F.D.A. but rather was “interested in rapidly having the company’s technologies tested legally and ethically.”)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-the...
So he was told by the DOD that it didn't work after he initiated a pilot program for Theranos.. and continued to push it internally.
Prison isn't a random card you can play to threaten people who you don't like, unless you want to go back to the USSR.
Whilst I've only held board memberships in Australia I expect it's a concept that translates somewhat to other countries.
Board members can be held personally responsible for the misconduct of a company (criminally as well as civilly).
too big to jail
The company lied to its own board of directors and investors. I don't think they are the ones who need to be jailed.
>> *billionaires, former senators and secretaries of state*
The whole thing smacks of an outright fraud to skim funds from obamacare and elsewhere via pharmacy blood testing fees..
You just described the business model of about 1/8th of all companies operating in the US healthcare business...