The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 5 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
McLean: Valeant pitched zero R&D and justified price hikes against liver transplants
“Their whole promise to investors was, we don't need to do R&D. So it wasn't an argument of, we're gonna take the profits we're making from this and invent new drugs that are gonna save people's lives or figure out a better drug to take, to treat this disease. …”
McLean: Fortune's Enron takedown originated from short seller Jim Chanos' tip
“But this piece, nonetheless, which started when a guy named Jim Chanos, who many people know, he's one of the longest-running short sellers out there, came to me and said, how does Enron make money? Tell me if you can figure it out.”
McLean: Lloyd Blankfein Told FT He Did Not Consider Himself Well-Off
“The Financial Times did a really good interview with Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. It was a couple of months ago, maybe a month ago, and Blankfein said in that interview that he didn't consider himself particularly well off.”
McLean: Unlike Enron, Valeant attracted smart money like Sequoia and Bill Ackman
“With Enron, when you got to what was commonly considered the smart money, people either weren't invested in Enron, or they were short. And it was largely long-only funds and index funds, and what we think of in terrible terms, but the dumb money that was inves…”
McLean: Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling preferred hiring 'people with spikes'
“Jeff Skilling used to say that he liked people with spikes, and what he meant by that was that he didn't like well-rounded, genial, average people. He liked people with a really exceptional characteristic that defined them, and that may come at the expense of …”