You’ve probably seen a few of the political pundits (but far too few for my mind) going back and looking at their predictions and giving themselves a pretty bad grade. Why is that? Because the whole of American society is a vastly complex system that makes even small bore predictions dangerous and more likely to be incorrect than correct over any length of time.
But at least these folks are trying. What you won’t see is the convicted con artist Porter Stansberry who spent all of 2011 hawking his “investment” newsletters and books with a piece of scare propaganda called “End of America 2011”.
You’ve probably seen the commercials from time to time. They have been on MSNBC, CNN, and, of course Fox “News”. These commercials give you a clue as too what you will find if you go and waste 77 minutes of your life on this steaming tightly coiled pile of lies and deceit aimed at making you spend money on Stansberry’s “advice”.
Now lest you think I am just being hyperbolic when I say that Stansberry is a con artist, let me tell you about the 1.5 million fine that Stansberry had to pay for fraud, through, you guessed it, a newsletter!
It was so bad that the judge in his decision (yes this was on of the cases the SEC took to trial rather than settle), that the newsletter was “replete with lies”. The newsletter claimed the people who bought it would double their money, with “insider tips” from executives at companies that Stansberry had contact with.
These newsletters sold for $1,000 a piece and Stansberry sold 1,217 of them. It is a truism that you can not cheat an honest man, and this is the case here too. The folks who were dumb enough to pay for supposed insider tips should have been worried about insider trading charges, but all they saw was dollar signs and they lined up to be fleeced.
With “End of America 2011”, Stansberry apparently learned that it was easier to fleece large numbers of sheep for small amounts instead of small numbers of high dollar investor, but it is still basically the same scam.
If you go to the website you will be able to watch a 77 minute power point presentation. But have some time on your hands, because it is formatted so you can’t skip ahead and the first 59 minutes is the droning voice of Stansberry (if he wanted to make millions he could just sell recording of himself reading anything to insomniacs) trying the scare the shit out of you.
You’ll hear about a “European country” that “stole” the money of the people by preventing them from withdrawing in from banks and then had hyper inflation of up to 100% per day. What barely mentions is that it was the former Yugoslavia in 1993-1995, you know right after the Soviet style Eastern European governments where collapsing and trying to move to a market economy.
But he will keep saying in slow scary voice (with the text in red at this point) “it will happen here!” And that it was going to happen in 2011.
After he has basically hypnotized you with his droning voice and dire predictions he gives a little advice for the collapse of society (be ready to flee the cities, have 6 months of food and meds on hand, etc).
Then, in fine infomercial tradition, he gets to the things you can have for free. He’ll give you his crappy books on investing in gold and silver (he claims that silver will be the hard currency of the U.S. again) as well as important ways to hide your silver assets, so they are safe when society collapse, sadly that is not a joke.
Then comes the real pitch. You see good old Porter knows how to make money even in the total collapse of society. Hey, it is an ill wind that blow no good, right? And he is willing to share that and what he calls his 100% strategy (he just can’t stay away from the claim of doubling your money, it is just too good) in his monthly newsletters.
Best of all he’ll sell them to you for half of the annual $100!
All I can say to this is Jesus fucking Wept!
This guy is a fraud, a convicted fraud at that. There was some minimal chance that the U.S. economy would collapse in 2011 (probably in the low single digits if that high) but there was nothing that should be considered on the level of the doomsday scenario he presents in End of America.
And now that the whole 0f 2011 has passed and not one of his dire predictions has come true it is really time for Porter Stansberry to go away. I do not know how much money he made on those newsletters of his, but the people who subscribed to them would have done better to light the $50 or $100 they paid on fire.
One thing I do find interesting is that Ron Paul ran this same kind of scam with the Ron Paul investment report. It is not just that he wrote homophobic, racist conspiracy theory (or at least allowed it to be published under his name) in them, but he also talked up the importance of buying gold as bulwark against the coming societal collapse.
So, if you’re wondering who in the world would buy crap like this from Porter Stansberry, well, just look to your nearest Ron Paul die-hard. If they are over 40 it is probably a safe bet that they are going to lap this stuff up.
For the rest of us, if you see or hear a loved one or even an associate talking about this BS, be sure to explain to them that they are sending money to a con man, and should stay as far away from his advice as they can.
Here is hoping that this is the last that we hear from Porter Stansberry, but sadly I think that he is busy right now filing the 2011 off of his scare propaganda and putting 2012 in its place. After there is one born every minute and Porter has a lifestyle to support.
The floor is yours.