“I thought we were gonna get television. The truth is… television is gonna get us.”
—Dick Goodwin, Quiz Show
When Mark Zuckerberg went to Capitol Hill earlier in the year I knew Facebook was in serious trouble.
Ostensibly, he was there to apologize to us about how Facebook used customer data so cavalierly.
But, really he was there to explain how everything had gone so wrong.
Facebook was designed to be the enforcer of social norms pushed by the political and corporate establishment.
It was built with Wall Street’s decade-long access to cost-free money to invest in the technologies to create a voluntary layer of social control.
The Fed is pulling back the punchbowl and Wall St. already cashed out most if its chips, leaving the retail “muppets” holding the bag.
Facebook, along with Twitter and Google, were outsourced by the real power brokers to erect a web of censorship platforms which circumvent the 1st amendment, because they are ‘private’ companies.
Like Alex Jones or hate him, he brings a lot of traffic to Facebook. Traffic the company doesn’t want, apparently.
It doesn’t need people who like Alex Jones…
But they still want your data.
Just like the payment processors Stripe, PayPal and VISA are all private companies which can kick you off their platform and deny you a business and a livelihood because you’re not ‘woke’ enough.
The blockchain will fix this in the future, but right now things are dicey at best. People like me are very vulnerable to running afoul of these people.
Click here to sign up for the Newsletter and bypass Patreon.
But, like I told my subscribers last fall, the moment of Peak Facebook would arrive soon enough.
Why?
Because it’s all fake interactions by increasingly fake personas we have to erect lest we get shouted at by someone looking for a dragons to slay to bring meaning to their otherwise pointless lives.
And sometimes those people are our very best friends.
Facebook was built on the false premise that we want to be in contact with all of the people we ever met ALL THE TIME. But no, we really don’t. We all, as T.S. Eliot put it, “prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”
And once the bloom is off the digital rose, once the social environment becomes toxic, what’s left to do on Facebook?
Cat videos, Huskies arguing with their owners (my personal favorite) and food porn.
So, it came as no shock to me that Facebook finally hit the earnings wall in Q2.
And the shock was immense.
And it gutted the stock 20% to hit short-term support.
But, the big damage was done back in Q1, with the blow to Facebook’s credibility.
Most people don’t want to believe in ‘conspiracy theories.’ Their default position is to put themselves in the shoes of the person or group and project their behavior onto them.
And, that’s why when Zuckerberg spoke to Congress and came off like a stiffer version of Data from Star Trek, millions of people finally figured out what was happening.
You can’t fake body language for very long. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a psychopath, he’s a just a creepy, stalker kid, way out of his depth with an over-inflated sense of his importance.
In short, he’s a bad liar.
And that’s why Facebook is where it is.
And why, in my mind, the stock will drop further this week as it targets medium-term support near $150.
The pump and dump on Facebook by Wall Street began at the beginning of the year.
They could see the numbers then, the chart spells it out candle by candle.
I’d almost go so far to say that once Cambridge Analytica’s malfeasance got out, Zuckerberg was thrown to the wolves.
So far, he got himself a $3.5 billion golden parachute, selling that much stock after those hearings.
And to give you an idea of how much he cares about his company he had Facebook buy back $3.2 of his stock at now 20% over the market price.
This is the essence of insider-trading. Publicly selling billions in stock while operating a stock buyback program with company money at prices you know will be lower once earnings come out?
It’s the essence of dishonest. I told you Zuckerberg was a bad liar.
It only makes the case against Facebook that much stronger.
And don’t get me started on what’s wrong with Twitter!
I go over Facebook’s chart, along with Gold and Bitcoin in this week’s Market Report for subscribers. 15 Minutes of news and technical analysis every Wednesday and Sunday
Click here to join Patreon and get this Market Report for just $4/month.
I thought we had seen peak Facebook too but other commenters had me seeing that this was just a blip on path upward. And the reason for that is: The economy is trending downward and when that happens the central banks of the world create lots of money. In this age, these institutions are not going to wait for the crashes and they will fire up their computers immediately. This bodes extremely well for all of the FANG stocks and extremely poorly for the major industry stocks like the auto makers and chemical companies.
I disagree. When the central banks are forced to hyperinflate this time it will be to stave off a full-blown sovereign debt crisis that will take a major institution down. Most likely the ECB but it could be the BoJ.
This is not a normal situation but rather the last cycle before what Mises called “The Crack-Up Boom.”
We’re seeing it now as Trump tries to remake the world markets (rightly, I might add) by lowering byzantine tariffs structures and end entangling alliances, the dollar is going to go through a massive spike higher, which will destroy one of the two major markets, Europe or Japan. Since Trump has his sights set on Europe, bet on that.
Momentum stocks are going to get killed in this environment… because it will be deflationary and investors will shift back towards tangible assets not ephemeral ones. And consumer-driven momentum stocks will not do well in that environment. Netflix might… cheap entertainment. But the others are in trouble because they are more replaceable.
Only time will tell who is correct. But I don’t have any of my personally managed savings in any of these FANG stocks although I am sure my mutual funds and what not have bets on these companies or own stock in other financials that are heavily invested in the companies as well.
What we do agree on is that Facebook seems kind of creepy in that they are attempting to squash opinions that counter those of their principals while at the same time buying back shares while at the same time having executives sell shares.
Another area of disagreement is on the topic of a “Crackup Boom”. I don’t see this in the next 20 years at a minimum as the Major Western Central Banks (USA, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, Australia and France) are far from this position as none of their partner governments are so in debt that that interest payments exceed tax revenues YET. Moreover, these banks have plenty of tricks most of which were used already that include but are not limited to: Bail Ins, banking asset purchases, government assumption of derivative contracts, fake bonds, etc to steal money and assets from their respective domains and extend their existence.
Great Article!
If you want to hasten Facebook’s demise and are involved with Crypto join the $300B Global Class Action against Facebook & Google’s Crypto Ad Ban at http://www.jpbliberty.com
Here is data from the web site you posted:
Cause of Action
The class action will allege that Google and Facebook banning the advertising of their Web 3.0 competitors breached the provisions of the Australian Competition and Consumer Law including:
concerted practice that has the purpose and/or likely effect of substantially lessening competition (s45(1)(c))
misuse of market power (s46)
giving effect to a cartel provision in a contract, arrangement or understanding (s45AK)
misleading and deceptive conduct (s18)
Who has a claim
Anyone worldwide who was adversely affected by the Crypto Ad Ban announcements on 30 January (Facebook) & 14 March 2018 (Google) including:
Persons holding cryptocurrency prior to Crypto Ad Ban announcements
Owners of Crypto Industry businesses including
Crypto Exchanges
Crypto Wallet Providers
Crypto Projects (pre and post ICO)
Crypto Miners
Crypto Advisories
I have several issues with this:
1. I haven’t been damaged in any measurable way.
2. I don’t want Facebook and Google in the Crypto business and am glad they are in the case here against the technology.
3. I will not submit to the government of Australia as I am not Australian nor have I ever been in that country.
4. I hate class action lawsuits where someone other than me gets a big payday and I am the party that has been damaged. Only in this case I have’
5. If you want to get Facebook and Google and the rest of the governments around the world, then start an online business using crypto-currency.
Hi Bogart, thanks for your comments.
2. Facebook & Google are not against crypto technology, they are building their own crypto platforms while illegally banning their Crypto competitors’ Ads.
3. You are not “submitting to the government of Australia” by joining a class action in Australia as a class member. Signup is anonymous and class members are not involved or liable in the legal case. You’ll just get a payout if the case is successful.
4. The class members get 70% of their damages which is a whole lot more than nothing if the case isn’t brought. The people who buy tokens to fund the case get 25% of the damages which is fair considering the risk they take. JPB Liberty gets 5% for organising and managing the class action. What is unreasonable about that?
5. JPB Liberty IS a cryptocurrency business – its funding a class action to protect the Crypto Industry using crypto tokens.
Facebook / Twitter / Google I believe are all fronted by the CIA , NSA with the rest of the intelligence agencies as data mining platforms to not only sell the data to corporations like Amazon but shared with those that seek information gleaned from private citizens for less than moral and legal reasons. It’s a Wonderful plan of entrapment using social media , looking to put us into a state of complacency and at the same time they use the platform as a means of propoganda while through logorithums controlling the content to suppress truth and light.
Take the time to go on your FB account and request a zip download of the data they have aquired in your account. So go figure, what do they have on your smartphone .