The Fine Line To Making Money On The Net 

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The Fine Line To Making Money On The Net 
Copyright © 2001 Gauher Chaudhry, All Rights Reserved. 

What is the fine line to making money on the Internet? How far will someone go to make money on the Internet? 

We have been blessed since the mid 90's with this superb new  technology that has been making ordinary people overnight millionaires. 

Fifteen year-old Jonathan Lebed managed to amass nearly  $800,000 in only 6 months. This is before the U.S. Securities  and Exchange Commission came after Jonathan and accused him  of manipulating the stock markets. 

How? 

By posting hundreds of messages on Yahoo! Finance under  fictitious names promoting stocks to others. Stocks the  normally had a daily volume of only 60,000 would end up being  traded over one million times. Once the price rose, Jonathan  would sell and make a profit. Did Jonathan Lebed commit a  crime? Is what he did unethical? 

Are people who buy stocks just because someone says to buy it  just plain stupid? I don't know who to blame more, Jonathan or the stock buyer. 

As a professional accountant, I can see that most of the stock  prices of dot com companies are seriously inflated. There are  mathematical formulas to calculating the true value of a stock.  Since I understand financial statements and various financial  ratios, I can pretty much calculate what a companies stock is  truly worth. 

But, is that what the stock market is really about? Do people  trade on what they read in a company's financial statements or  listen to the rumours that spread like wildfire in the financial  markets. Amazon.com hasn't made a profit in its first five  years of operations, yet the price of there stock continued to rise. 

The stock market really appears to be a gathering ground for  manipulators. The successful manipulators are the ones who make  profits. The people who lose money are the novices who listen  and act on every word someone else says or writes. 

Jonathan's case got me thinking about the Internet and how it  has also become a playing ground for Internet manipulators.  There are so many scams and fly-by-night operations on the  Internet, that people will purchase on emotion rather than  reason. Do you honestly believe that you can make $100,000  doing absolutely nothing as some sales letters suggest? 

There are literally thousands of companies and individuals that  send out mass email messages making false claims and promises. 

The SEC is trying to regulate the stock market, but who is  regulating the Internet? Although we have great organizations  such as Internet Scambusters who try to warn consumers of  Internet scams, but it is obviously not enough. 

Although I don't believe Jonathan committed a crime, I do feel  that there are some ethical issues to consider. Why did he  use different emails to post his messages on Yahoo! Finance?  Did he write in his messages that he was just a 15 year-old boy?  Did he try to intentionally mislead people? 

But when it comes down to it, what is the difference between  what Jonathan did and what financial advisors do everyday on  Wall Street? On September 20, 2000, the SEC settled their case  with Jonathan Lebed. Although he had to pay close to $285,000  to settle the case, he did get to keep close to half a million  dollars. 

Unfortunately, there are hundreds of real Internet scammers who will keep all their profits and will not be accountable to anyone. 

Want to read more of my articles?  Then go to: http://www.freecoolcash.com/articles 

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Gauher Chaudhry is editor of Cool Cash Ezine. You can subscribe  by sending an email to subscribe@freecoolcash.com with "sub-art" in the subject. Join Gauher's two-tier affiliate program by promoting his latest book "EZ Money With Ezines." Gauher teaches  individuals how to make thousands of dollars in the ezine publishing business! http://www.ezmoneywithezines.com 
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Article courtesy The Syndicator

"Network Marketing: The Facts"