It is a very good day for my psychological short on @Herbalife. And it is an even better day for the world to see one of the biggest pyramid schemes fail. That said, it is sad that so many with so little have been deceived and bankrupted by Herbalife. And it is incredibly disappointing that the FTC in 2016 chose to settle with Herbalife for $200 million and allow it to continue to operate. The FTC knew that Herbalife was a pyramid scheme in 2016. It knew this because it had hired a senior @UCBerkeley economist and his team to analyze Herbalife distributor data and quit rates that the FTC had obtained by subpoena from the company. With access to these data, the Berkeley economist concluded in a detailed analytical report that Herbalife was a pyramid scheme. However, instead of shutting HLF down, the @FTC took the quick victory and headline benefit of a $200m settlement. It did so apparently because it was afraid of battling with Carl Icahn and the legal team he had assembled compared with the quick benefits of a $200m settlement and favorable headlines. @KamalaHarris, as attorney general of the state of California, also had the opportunity to shut down Herbalife. In fact, her former office still has the benefit of a consent decree that HLF had entered into in 1986 that enabled the California AG to shut down the company overnight if HLF continued its pyramid scheme practices. In fact, AG Harris’ staff recommended that she should shut down HLF in around 2017, but she refused to do so. As a result, her staff leaked its memo to us and the media at that time. Unfortunately, by then no one was interested in the story. Interestingly, at that same time, AG Harris’ husband was a partner at Venable, one of HLF’s top law firms. HLF has always been very savvy about managing its regulatory and legal risks. [The media might seek to get a copy of the Berkeley economist’s report and also dig up a copy of the California AG staff memo (we probably have a copy of that memo in a file somewhere.)] The whole situation is an incredibly damning indictment of how our regulatory enforcement apparatus works. Our regulators failure to act cost newly recruited HLF distributors billions of dollars in losses over the last nearly eight years since the FTC settlement. HLF distributors are generally low-income, often undocumented aspiring entrepreneurs pursuing what they are misled into believing is the American dream. The FTC’s failure to act made Carl Icahn a billion dollars and cost Pershing Square investors a billion dollars, but that’s a side show. If you are an Herbalife employee, the time to leave is now. Herbalife is not a good look on your resume. The longer you stay at the company, the worse your future job prospects. I always wondered how a legitimate person could work for a pyramid scheme. And to Michael Johnson, the HLF management team and its board of directors: Shame on you for the incredible harm you have caused and the lives you have destroyed.