Zero Hedge small print

Underbara Zero Hedge har riktigt trevliga disclaimers och användarvillkor. Ni vet sådana där allmäna avböner om ansvarsfrihet etc som ingen läser.

Från disclaimern:

“Making investment decisions based on information published on Zero Hedge, or any internet site for that matter, is more than unwise, it is folly.
[…]
Zero Hedge is not a broker-dealer, legal advisor, tax advisor, investment advisor, accounting advisor or children’s party clown. (There seems to have been some confusion that these terms are interchangeable). Relying on Zero Hedge in such a capacity will result in regulatory entanglements, civil and criminal actions naming you as a defendant, severe tax liabilities and liens from the tax authority in your jurisdiction and the horror of lax accounting standards.”

Från deras privacy policy:

“Readers may, from time to time, post information on Zero Hedge. Once you do that, *BAM!* you grant us the right to use it (provided you had clean title to it in the first place) in perpetuity. (That means forever).
Depending on what you want from Zero Hedge, we may require your email. (Hard to send you newsletters when we don’t have it, for instance). We occasionally use this data to screen out repeat registration and the like.
Lots of cool stuff on Zero Hedge requires cookies. So we use those. You can clean them off if they scare you.
Our advertisers may use cookies. We have no idea. You can clean them off if they scare you.
[…]
It is entirely possible that some enterprising law enforcement official bucking for a promotion may actually attempt to compel us to to disclose data. We don’t even go to the Policeman’s Ball so you can guess what our lawyer will say about this sort of thing.
Other sites we link to have less amusing and potentially less comprehensive privacy policies than we do. Their policies are likely less user-friendly than ours too. Please don’t piss off the locals wherever you may wander off to and don’t assume everyone is as enlightened as we are on this topic.”

Och om intressekonflikter, som man rakt av avfärdar som trams.

“We think this no more than a shameful charade. You should too.

In the first instance, one is not “guilty of a conflict of interest.” A conflict of interest, in and of itself, is not a crime. There is only the appearance of a conflict of interest. Why, exactly, are appearances so important? We think it reflects a particular attitude about public discourse. A particularly disturbing attitude.
[…]
Secondly, one does not suddenly acquire the literary prowess of Hemingway or the logical mastery of Aristotle of Thrace simply by revealing that some time in the last three years one may or may not have slept with the dentist of the Chief Executive Officer of XYZ, Corporation (it was dark and we were drunk- so we still aren’t sure).
[…]
As to writing about investments, we plan to do a lot of it. So how do we plan to handle conflicts?

We don’t.

You should assume that at all times we are so totally just talking our book it would shock and awe you like the unexpected, early-morning arrival of a cluster of BGM-109C Tomahawks (were you a believer in the importance of “optics” that is).

If we make a off-hand remark about New Zealand sheep herders it’s because we are long New Zealand West Island Cold Kut (NZ-WICK) Wool futures and Kiwi brand Condoms (“For it’s pleasure”). If we are joking around about Cliff Asness, it’s because we have developed a synthetic short of ARQ. If we jest about Joe Sixpack, it’s because we are trying to hype our cheap-American-beer holdings so we can exit quickly. Basically, we are telling you about a position we believe in strongly enough to invest in.

We’ve always wondered this: Why would you want to read about a position so uncompelling that the author doesn’t have the stones to put their money where their keyboard is? Even if you elected to read such material for entertainment value (what else is there anymore?) why on earth would you ever consider it “more credible.”

Uppfriskande läsning som i sin helhet, inte bara citaten ovan, gör det värt att faktiskt read the small print.