More on the investment flabber

On LENR Forum, Eric Walker mentioned a post by joshg. While the link was incorrect, I did some searching for joshg (LF), and Josh G (ECW). I found comments I had overlooked.

joshg, himself, overlooks timing. It’s easy to do this when one is defending a thesis, looking for proof. One will come across some evidence that seems to prove the thesis, but events have been collapsed, and what happened later, in fact, can be asserted as a cause of what happened earlier.

4/21/2017, joshg wrote 

I have frequently been challenged to substantiate my claim that Darden et al. basically defrauded investors by using the 1MW test to raise $50 million from Woodford (plus some kind of joint research endeavor with the Chinese plus who knows what else).

Josh is not promoting the $200 or $121 million Chinese investment in IH meme. However, was the 1 MW test “used” to raise the $50 million?

I was always too lazy to go back through and try to make my case again. But here is one of the key passages. It’s from 241-01 Exhibit A, Darden’s Deposition Excerpts. We see clearly that IH knew from the beginning that the test was jeopardized, and yet we also know that they still brought investors to tour the plant:

They brought a number of people to tour. Did they bring investors who then decided to invest? To assess this requires a sense of timing. Most of all, was an investment the result of an impressive test, compounded by IH hype about it? The Planet Rossi logic is that if they hyped the E-Cat — to gain more investment — they must be lying, one way or another, to the world and the Court, about replication, or to the investors. Since they are, then, apparently, liars, nothing they say can be trusted. Yet, of course, for evidence, Darden’s testimony is used. What does it actually show?

(And Planet Rossi somehow doesn’t apply the “nothing a liar says can be trusted” concept to Rossi himself, who is shown, by court documents and clear admissions that he lied, over and over, to IH, to Hydrofusion, to his public on JONP, and to the Court in pleadings (which is not illegal), and, then, very likely, in sworn testimony that is occasionally in flat contradiction to the admissible evidence, which is where he might get in serious trouble. It’s the cover-up, stupid! Lying to investors is also fraud, if material.)

(Citing depositions, always cite the deposition page and preferably the line numbers. In this case, it is 241-1, 187:19 for the question Darden is answering.  Also add a PDF page reference to the URL, as with this one, making it easy for the reader, so my link should go straight to the question, which starts the page before what joshg cites.)

·1 After the plant got installed in Florida and we saw
·2 that Rossi had removed all of the instrumentation and
·3 the monitoring access that we had, and as we realized
·4 that he was restricting access to it so it was not
·5 going to be a fully transparent bona fide test, at that
·6 point we became very suspicious.
·7· · · · · · ·We realized that it was — something bad
·8 was going on down there.· And we don’t want to get
·9 thrown in jail for participating in some kind of fraud
10 so we said we don’t want to receive payment from them.”
(Yeah, they only wanted to receive payment from Woodford.)

So when did they “realize” this? The removal of instrumentation and monitoring was early, before the test started, but the restriction of access to the Plant took place in July, after the test had been running for about four months. Until that point, IH could chalk it up to Rossi habitual domination, wanting to be personally in full control of everything, but the restriction of access prevented IH from independently verifying test procedures and sanity, leaving them only Fabiani and West on site. West felt intimidated, physically unsafe, having been threatened by Fabiani, according to Murray’s testimony. Fabiani wasn’t about to blow any whistles. Neither West nor Fabiani were technically competent as steam engineers, nor were Darden and Vaughn at the necessary level.

When access was denied to Murray, all investor tours were stopped as well, except for much later one visit with Woodford. See the list of Plant tours as the IH Answer to Interrogatory No. 5.

The only visitor known to have invested after the putative start of the Test was Woodford, but the May, 2015 date for this investment was only a technicality, the date that the money was actually put into IH International, Ltd. From the Ampenergo memo, we know that this was in planning already in October, 2014, and that, from the beginning, it was “$25-50 million” with more available if needed (easily enough to cover the $89 million payment if it were decided to award it).

Rossi, in denying the Murray visit, July 13, 2015, tried to make it seem a little more reasonable by saying that visits were restricted to those already approved, even though this was still a gross violation of the Term Sheet and would be an even more gross violation if this were a Guaranteed Performance Test. (The idea would be that he was too busy to vet new visitors, I think. But if it was IH’s Plant, why couldn’t they bring anyone they chose?)

Since Woodford had visited before (February 9, 2015), Darden and Vaughn showed up with Woodford reps, August 21, 2015. By this time, IH and Rossi were on a collision course, lawyers were getting involved, etc. I assume that the Woodford people wanted to see for themselves, perhaps being more carefully observant this time. Anyone who had talked with a real engineer would know what to look for, i.e., where is the heat going? Popular ideas about heat have it being “absorbed” or “used,” which can be very misleading. It is very difficult to convert heat into something else, it’s limited … and if one can store the heat, what it is stored in becomes very dangerous. The exception would be phase change (i.e., melting ice), but that would require moving large amounts of product (such as massive deliveries of ice), and this would need to be done 24/7 with a continuous megawatt. Unless, of course, there was a heat exchanger…. So a visitor would be coached by an expert to look for where such a device might be and how the heat would be exhausted, it is not “absorbed,” it must leave the warehouse, and usually that is done through the roof, since people walking by dislike being cooked with hot air (and the trees would not do well, either). So they’d have looked for open mezzanine windows, for example. Walking in the back, they’d have looked for high air flow, it would be obvious. They would have looked for duct work.

From the timing, while Woodford may well have wanted to see the Plant before closing on the investment, the investment was not caused by the Plant performance, it was already planned, and there is no evidence of Darden hype at that point. IH Fanboy has often pointed to a Lamacraft comment about “core of the initial investment,” but has, in my view, interpreted this out of context. Lamacraft was not writing about the Woodford investment, which came later than the “initial investment,” i.e., the founding of IH. Woodford only made one investment, so distinguishing their own investment as “initial” would be odd usage. He’d have written “our investment.” He was commiserating with IH at what must be disappointing to them. They had all hoped for better.

I have no question that the Rossi affair was considered important; to me, it demonstrated a bold willingness by IH to take risks in order to be able to “crush the tests,” to rely on something much more solid than the speculation and inference that was rampant at the time.

There were persons who visited July 7, 2015, who appear, by name, to be Chinese. Hartanto was an IH investor already, if I’m correct. There is no clear sign of any new Chinese investment; but IH was hoping to collaborate with the Chinese, so this could have been a long-term building of relationships.

So two key questions:

1) Did IH inform Woodford, the Chinese and other potential investors that Rossi had removed the instrumentation and monitoring access, that he was restricting access to it, and that they felt it was not a bona fide test?

First of all, there is mind-reading here. IH would not come to conclusions about the test based merely on the exclusion. They would not announce that it was not “bona fide,” but they would be expected to disclose major concerns. Woodford visited the second time well after the exclusion. There seems to be an idea that Woodford was kept in the dark, but Woodford would certainly be asking questions and would not take kindly to being stonewalled, much less lied to. This commentary by joshg treats Woodford as some passive and clueless investor, when Woodford invests in risky high-tech ventures.

Vaughn was open, apparently, with Cassarino, of Ampenergo, and I think there may have been some hope that Cassarino would talk some sense into Rossi. However, I suspect that Rossi was far too heavily defended, wouldn’t hear it. Rossi was puzzled by the Ampenergo refusal to sign the Second Amendment. Why wouldn’t his friends sign that? I don’t find this difficult to understand at all.

To joshg and other Planet Rossi critics, IH would have an obvious motive to keep the investors in the dark. For them, it’s all about getting more investment. But investment gained under false pretenses, failure to disclose significant information, is a formula for later and serious legal difficulties. Darden, from Cherokee experience, would not be about to set that up. We have now seen much of the communication between IH and its investors, but by no means all of it. Did IH inform its investors of “X”? We don’t know, necessarily, unless a party has brought it to light by filing some pleading providing a document as evidence, or there was testimony and a party decided to show that part of the testimony as evidence.

This asking of questions to raise suspicion is typical of heavily biased argument. At least, here, joshg points to actual evidence, the Darden deposition, but then interprets it based on an already-formed world-view.

What the deposition shows is how IH came to view Rossi and the “test” after the Murray exclusion. There is no sign that any investment was obtained after that date. The last investor visit, setting aside the August visit by Woodford, was Hartanto et al, July 7, 2015. Darden and Vaughn were not there, but this is listed by IH because Hartanto was an IH investor already.

2) Did IH inform its investors that they were so suspicious of the test being fraudulent that they declined to collect payment for the power they were generating?

We haven’t seen evidence of this specific bit of information. But how suspicious is this? To me, they were legally safe, they could have invoiced for the power, with invoices that made it clear that they were relying on their customer’s evaluation of the power, which is what the Term Sheet provided. A reasonable suspicion at this point would be that it was really Rossi paying for the power. It would not have made Rossi’s case any stronger if they had invoiced. Rossi already claimed, in order to assert jurisdiction of the Florida court, that they were selling power there. They did not defend on that basis, as I recall. Had they invoiced, and had they been paid, then there would have been significant money to trace, much easier to follow than the vagueness that actually ensued. They ended up showing, anyway, that JMC/JMP was actually Rossi, turtles all the way down, but it might have been just a little easier to show.

I think the smart money is on “no.”

What joshg “thinks” is not evidence of “smart.” Where is the “smart money” here? With substantial evidence, it’s Woodford, actually and literally smart money, proven smart by that hard-headed judge, the market.

For that matter, Cherokee did not become a $2.2 billion corporation by taking stupid risks. To be sure, IH, especially the Rossi project — but, in fact, almost all LENR — was risky enough that Darden et al didn’t touch it with Cherokee money, but with their own. The proof of “smart” is that Woodford, which I am quite sure did extensive research first, including reading Krivit, Mary Yugo, et al, trusted them and chose to invest in a very long shot, tossing in much more and committing even more.

As to how deep that goes, we will see what happens in the trial and the aftermath. That’s a major reason I’m going to Miami. Will IH continue to be a major player in LENR research? Were they truly in this for the long haul?

Reading the Murray deposition, I’m not totally confident in their strategy, as to what they chose to investigate and support. Maybe. It really depends on how high a burn rate they were willing to tolerate, and they would have had access to non-public information. Letting the engineering staff go (and then depending on contractors, if they continue) could be digging in to survive hard times, if they maintain contact, resources in reserve, and readiness to move quickly when clear opportunities present. Or it could be giving up.

I do like Murray’s approach and attitude, LENR needs engineers with sharp eyes and hard noses, as well as genuine scientists, who are not out to prove themselves “right.” It doesn’t need polyanna “supporters” who cheer at everything that has a minute possibility of being real. It’s going to need billions of dollars in funding to nail it, and that doesn’t grow on Happy Trees with Lollipop Smileys.

Not that there is anything wrong with happiness, but when our happiness depends on identifying others as greedy bastards, we’ve lost something, it’s fake, like that “independent customer.”


joshg dove in deeper:

This is a classic example, from THHuxleynew, of distorting the facts and twisting arguments that has been very common here. If you read the Darden deposition I linked to in my earlier post, you will see that it is quite clear that before the test ran, they were sure that the results could not be properly validated. “It was not going to be a bona fide test.”

Well, we just read the excerpt from that deposition, above, and it doesn’t show what joshg claims is “quite clear.” joshg has assumed timing that is in contradiction to the deposition and known facts. The “test” began in February, 2015. Darden is not talking about “before the test ran,” i.e., before the beginning, nor before the investor visits. He is talking about later, after Rossi “was restricting access to it.”

·1 After the plant got installed in Florida and we saw
·2 that Rossi had removed all of the instrumentation and
·3 the monitoring access that we had, and as we realized
·4 that he was restricting access to it so it was not
·5 going to be a fully transparent bona fide test, at that
·6 point we became very suspicious.

joshg continued:

In other words they knew the test’s value was worthless.

Watch out when someone presents what someone else has said, with “in other words.” It is not what the person said, it’s an interpretation and that can, and often does, introduce new meanings not present in the original. They did not know, nor do they claim to know, that the “test’s value was worthless.” What actually happened, from the testimony, is that they became very suspicious, based on seeing evidence that the test was no longer “fully transparent.” “Bona fide” test here would mean “beyond reasonable suspicion.” The exclusion of Murray was fatal to the possibility of a “bona fide test,” even if Penon was right, the verifiability of Penon’s results was destroyed by Rossi actions.

It’s true that they couldn’t know ahead of time if the results were going to come back “positive or negative,” but they did know that no matter the result, it could not be trusted.

Once that exclusion took place, the “test” had crossed from possibly doubtful — they were concerned about the “customer,” — to serious untrustworthiness.

What THH had stated was just ordinary common sense; joshg thinks he has a contradiction to it, based on failing to read carefully and in context.

This, however, was not “before the test ran” and it was not “before the investments.” It was after the middle of July, 2015. It was, indeed, before the test results, as the Penon report, were available. But well before then, IH was clearly declaring that Doral was not the GPT and Penon not the ERV for a GPT.

Planet Rossi has discovered the McLaughlin email.

SSC wrote: (link added)

Mail from McLaughlin (APCO) to Rossi (214-30)

– I spoke with Tom today and he reported that the 400 day test is about to commence. I wanted to share a new mantras with you around this event. […] As guidance, I think we should call this event “a long term test and continued R&D” –

From the very beginning, it seems that Darden had indoctrinated his PR group to make no one call the Doral test the “GPT” … 😉

No correspondence has been revealed from anyone, Rossi or IH or anyone else at the time, who called the Doral “event” a “GPT.” Rossi avoided calling it a test, in proposing it. There is no mention of test in the correspondence setting up the move and the agreement with JMC/JMP.

There are a couple of pieces of evidence, and this is one, that a “test” was set up at Doral. Penon called himself “ERV,” and a “350 day test” was mentioned. However, what would the terms be, if this was a “GPT”?

The original GPT failed because it was not started in time — with the parties arguing about whose fault that was, but “fault” wouldn’t actually make a difference. (The Agreement was poorly written.) Then it was proposed to allow a GPT at a later time, upon the written agreement of all parties. Not only did Ampenergo refuse to sign this, there was then no formal written agreement to the start date. Simply that a test started, simply that it was monitored by Penon, would not be enough to establish a test as the “GPT,” with a set of conditions around performance and payment. By going ahead with no written agreement, all this would be vague.

The McLaughlin mail shows that the “400 day test” was not a GPT. If Rossi believed it was, he certainly could have questioned it, but Rossi did not want any mention of GPT, it’s obvious, until it was well under way. The test was as McLaughlin described it. “A long term test and continued R&D.” Rossi replied “OK.” McLaughlin also advised against “declaring a starting point.” Again, “OK.”

The Guaranteed Performance Test required a start point. Sure, this was for public consumption; however, this was February 18, 2015. The alleged test began 5 days later.

Was all this vague? Yes. However, Rossi knew that the Second Amendment, which allowed postponement of the GPT, was “cancelled.” There was no extended agreement, only cooperation at will. Rossi could easily have requested — or required, even — a formal agreement. He went ahead without it, and then violated the Term Sheet allowing IH access. In filing the lawsuit, he wanted an Agreement enforced that, by its own terms, had expired, then he wanted the Second Amendment enforced that had failed and would not bind anyone.

There were deficiencies in the Second Agreement as a contract that seemed, at first, to be mere technicalities. The missing signature for Leonardo Corp. The missing Ampenergo signature. The missing date, the day of the month never having been filled in. These were all signs that this agreement was never completed, it was a partially-signed proposal.

Then, lying to IH about a “customer,” Rossi set up a fake industrial plant, with a “customer” who would pay for power, apparently asked for Penon to provide measurements — surely IH would want to know how the Plant was performing! — but … never called it a Guaranteed Performance Test and never warned IH that they would need to pay … until Annesser threatened to sue for anticipatory breach, I think that was in December, 2015. SNAFU.

Had it been a GPT, it would have been absolutely outrageous that Rossi would not allow IH inspection. As a sale of power to a customer, with issues around access to customer secrets, not so outrageous … but at that point, IH did not have full information on the customer, knew only that the shell corporation created by Johnson was not fully independent, but … it still might have been representing another company, and Rossi had made sure that IH would think this was Johnson Matthey, but would not contact JM to find out. It would spook them! They would bolt and run!

(And of course they would deny it! Big corporations lie, that’s a Planet Rossi truism. They cannot be trusted.)


Update

More flabber, Rends keeps it up. Remember, Rends is a LENR Forum moderator. I’ve never noticed any abusive admin actions from him, but when someone like Alan Smith claims that the Team supports his actions, he’s referring to Rends and unknown others. I know that some admins don’t support the more extreme actions, but they are all willing to stay silent about behind-the-scenes conflicts, creating administration that is not accountable to the user community. This predictably leads to abuse.

This discussion is in the Playground, to be sure. The Playground, though, is used to promote abusive memes, to manipulate a community through disinformation … as Rends does here. I’m not claiming that this is deliberate, it probably is not. But it still causes damage. People read these claims and never see later correction, they walk away with ideas that are divorced from fact. That damage may continue for years. It’s a structural problem.

THHuxleynew wrote:

they have signed a contract with the knowledge that they can possibly not raise the sum and so they could not be interested seeing Rossi successfully running a long term test

If Rends were a noob, this would still call for correction, for he has miquoted THH in a way that makes it appear that THH is making that statement, when, in fact, this was THH quoting Rends … and denying the truth of the Rends statement, so the question Rends asks below was already answered, if Rends, in fact, read what he cited and quoted.

“That they can possibly not raise the sum” True or False? … it is obvious, read the papers, there is no hint that there is any guaranteed contract, commitment what s ever for this sum.

How something allegedly missing could be “obvious” from reading what is on the order of a thousand documents is beyond me, but cogency and intelligence of argument are not expected from Rends. This statement of Rends (“no hint”) is plainly false and contrary evidence has been cited; there is more than a “hint,” there is legally admissible evidence of a commitment. “Guaranteed”? Maybe not. Woodford apparently committed a total of $200 million, and actually gave $50 million as an initial tranche.

We can suspect that IH never asked for this additional money, so, yes, they never had it in the bank, which is what the commercially clueless seem to expect, including Rends. There are multiple references to this commitment in the record. The one that comes to mind first is in the Ampenergo memo. This is, however, hearsay, being Cassarino’s report of a conversation with Vaughn. It was considered important by Rossi that “they didn’t have the money to pay, never intended to have the money to pay, the snakes!” so we can be sure that the depositions of Darden and Vaughn would have covered this matter. We don’t, as the public, have complete depositions, but if there was anything there that supported the Rossi Story on this, you can bet it would have been mentioned in the Rossi Partial Motion for Summary Judgment, where far weaker claims were made, some which were actually contradicted by the evidence cited.

“so they could not be interested seeing Rossi successfully running a long term test” True or False? … the court papers say, that IH, Darden et.al do not accept this long term test for to meet the requirements of the license agreement and claim overhead that the test was not successful and denounce it as fraud.

Again, this is commercially clueless. The IH fundraising effort did not fail, but suppose it had, and suppose there was a successful GPT, all legally proper, without IH having the ability to pay the $89 million. What would they do? — what would any investment enterprise do?

They would negotiate, or they would borrow the money. They would not let an opportunity worth billions of dollars per year fall through because of some transient difficulty. Planet Rossi is forced to imagine some conspiracy to suppress the technology, that IH has investments in other technologies that they want to have more time to close out, but this would be penny-wise, if wise at all, and pound foolish. Ton foolish.

They would have, in this scenario, invested about $20 million in a massive hedge that would cover their losses if the other technology crashed because of a newer, disruptive technology like the E-Cat. And they would throw it away and argue that the test failed? Instead of simply acknowledging that they couldn’t pay yet.? There is only one player in this game that plays like that.

Andrea Rossi. He lies, routinely.

Nobody skilled in negotiation would recommend insulting the merchandise, when attempting to negotiate some relaxation in price or terms. I bought a painting at a charity sale that, when I had it appraised, was worth about $600, for $17.50. It had been marked $35. Imagine if I had said, “This is not a very good painting. Would you take half price for it?” I’d have gotten nowhere, most likely. No, I said, “This is really very nice, I like it, but I don’t have much money and I can only afford $15.” The woman said, “$17.50” and I walked away with it. I have bought extremely valuable items that way. And I wasn’t lying, I was telling the truth. Most of my life, I haven’t had much money. But I’ve had a lot of fun!

When my ex and I went to Morocco, we bought rugs in the souk in Marrakesh. Same way. Never insult the merchandise, if it is lousy, why buy it in the first place? She paid prices that the sellers were satisfied with, and she sold it all, here, for a good profit. One seller, however, when we didn’t show any interest in paying his exorbitant prices, tried to insult us. “You aren’t serious, you are wasting my time!” He was attempting to push me into proving we were serious by buying something. Instead, we walked and found some much friendlier sellers deeper in the souk, not so trampled by tourists.

Easily, IH could have negotiated for payments on the $89 million, but that would only make sense if the Test were trustworthy, and Rossi made quite sure that it could not be trusted, in many ways.

If Rends is unaware of the evidence, why? Previously, he has said that the documents were too complicated, he didn’t understand them. However, this has all been mentioned on LENR Forum, but LENR Forum has no means or set of users dedicated to building content; rather it’s as if one has a transcript of conversations in a bar, and somewhere in that torrent of words is some actual information. Nobody is familiar with all of it.

I will assert at this point that it is very possible that nobody is familiar with all the evidence that has been published in the public record. However, I can create indexes to it, and can make it searchable. That’s in process, it all takes time. Meanwhile, by what I’ve done to analyze and organize it, I’m more-or-less familiar with all of it. Lots of it I’ve missed, I’m sure, I keep finding little gems overlooked before.

I can’t imagine anyone actually interested in reality with regard to Rossi v. Darden who would not be following this blog, or at least extensively using it. When errors are found here, we correct them, ASAP. (This is relatively rare on LENR Forum, though some authors do correct errors when they are pointed out.)

(I’m sure there are lots of undiscovered errors, I find them frequently, mostly before anyone else does…. but with more attention and more of a community intention to build useful and reliable resources, that could accelerate. Identifying errors is a great crowd-source function. Endless argument isn’t.)

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

9 thoughts on “More on the investment flabber”

  1. Abd – I think your dispute with LF is that you intend to get something done by your writings, and achieve a consensus of what actually needs to be done and then actually do it or get it done. LF seems to have a raison-d’être of just talking about the news of the day, so the comments are not treated as important but that, once people have stated them and got them off their chests, they don’t matter any longer. Most blogs and online conversations/fora are indeed that way, after all. It’s not treated as work, but as play. This is likely why it is tolerated for comments to simply disappear. Since on LF comments move or disappear, then any links to them will obviously be unreliable too, and that is a structural defect in LF because it was not designed as a permanent resource of useful data. As things stand, in any case you need to wade through a lot of fluff and trolling/socks to find the useful data.

    Since I put effort into my comments, if they disappear then I stop writing in that blog.

    Alan essentially believes that Rossi has had a real result. If you visit LFH then you’ll see he’s been doing a lot of work in replications, and he’s also doing this essentially open-source and making the kits available for sale to others at a low mark-up in order that more people can try it themselves. If Rossi actually had a technology, then what Alan is doing would provide more chances for *someone* to decode it and make LENR available to all. Since the underlying logic has at least some validity, then even if Rossi hasn’t actually had anything work, there’s a possibility that Alan or one of his customers may find something that works. Yep, may be a skinny chance, but may achieve that 1% probability, though it’s obviously impossible to quantify. Still, the discussions about what is done may bring something new about things to try and thus succeed where Rossi obviously hasn’t. I thus cut Alan a lot of slack – he’s actually doing something practical.

    Rends simply doesn’t understand that the main money was available only when the conditions were achieved. If the conditions had been achieved (that IH had a verified system that they could develop) then the money would have been there, but otherwise it would stay where it was. This is standard behaviour. I’ve bought houses knowing that the money wasn’t in my account until the deal was completed, but I could still promise to pay the money since the agreement with the building-society was in place and I knew that when the money was due I could in fact pay it. Since Rends is German he may not have experience buying a house (the majority rent there) but buying a new car is much the same, in that you get the agreements in place and then rely on the contract to be observed. It’s also possible to buy a house on a handshake (I’ve done that) and to sort the money side out afterwards. Honour on both sides is needed, that’s all.

    1. It’s my comment on LF. not exactly a dispute. LF is owned by David Nygren (“Founder”) and sells advertising. He has the right to do that, and can run it as he pleases, though representing LF as the “The independent Low Energy Nuclear Reaction community” is a tad inaccurate. I also have the right to describe what LF does.

      (Peter Gluck got bent out of shape over my using “cold fusion community” for this blog, but Infusion Institute was created to set up ways that the general community could create structures and ways to support the real research, ways to advise itself and others. This blog is open, and may be used to express views quite different from my own, and where conflict arises, community structures will be created. It only looks like my personal echo chamber temporarily. So far, only one user has requested Author tools that allow creating blog posts, and it’s only been used a little.)

      Yes. When faced with arbitrary and unapologetic deletion, repeated, with no sign of any administrative restraint, I don’t write there any more. Yes, they banned me, but the main effect of that is that I cannot go back and correct errors I’ve found in my posts, or link to updates. I stopped posting before I was banned, and was only banned because I announced I wasn’t posting. Smith is like a spiteful child, in spite of being my age. Yes. What he was doing with LFH was worthy of respect, may still be. However, it also created a conflict of interest, Smith and others wanted to discourage discussion of Rossi v. Darden. It would hurt business. And, yes, I know that Smith isn’t out to make a bundle of money, but … there is still a conflict.

      Planet Rossi in general doesn’t understand business. They imagine that there is something slimy about creating LLCs, though, of course, Johnson created one for Fabiani. As to shell corporations, JM Products was a classic one, created specifically to support a claim of independence, “owned” by an even less substantial shell, Platinum America Trust.

      When I bought houses, we sometimes had a mortgage commitment in place first. But certainly the mortgage company wouldn’t give us a check for a large chunk of a million dollars. The first step was signing a purchase agreement, typically with a relatively small deposit. That agreement provides that it is contingent on obtaining a mortgage. Some purchase agreements don’t have that contingency. In the event that the mortgage is not obtained, then, the deposit might be forfeit, but if the buyer made efforts to obtain a mortgage, it would be routine to return it. However, the purchase agreement is binding. We bought some land, paid a deposit, and had the cash. The seller decided he didn’t want to sell and refused to close. We got to the point of sending a letter from a lawyer, the matter was clear. The seller relented and we bought the land and later sold it at a profit.

      Most business operates on assumptions of good faith. If, in fact, IH simply didn’t have the money, for Rossi to sue them makes practically no business sense, not the way he did it (actually filing suit a day before the payment was allegedly past due, I think they misread “five business days”). You don’t sue someone unless you believe they actually have the money and are simply refusing to pay you in bad faith, and even then, any sane lawyer will seriously attempt settlement and that takes more than a week!

      Since IH didn’t have $89 million, to have any hope of recovery, Rossi had to sue Cherokee and Darden and Vaughn personally, not just IH and IPH. That the legal basis for this was thin to nonexistent didn’t matter. I suspect that Rossi and Annesser thought that IH would cave and settle. I wonder if Annesser knew how crazy the situation had been. Of course, by not noticing that, and not noticing the huge defects in the Complaint, he set up a nice little business for himself. If he isn’t sanctioned. The flaws in the Second Amendment were glaring.

      As to the $150 million, Vaughn was asked. Yes, there was a commitment. No, Woodford could not have been forced to put in more money, it would have been voluntary. A mortgage company can make a commitment and can then back out if they find out something new. Rather, this was an ordinary business commitment, apparently set up before the original Woodford $50 million was closed. We have not seen the agreement with Woodford, but Rossi would have received it, because it was ordered by the Magistrate.

      Rossi, in response to the IH MSJ, deceptively presented that testimony, paragraph 47, making it seem the opposite of the actual sense. I covered this in my review of the IH MSJ summary of facts paragraph 47. Notice how Rossi’s response was irrelevant to the claimed fact; but this comment of Rossi’s was then quoted on LENR Forum, I think by IH Fanboy, as if fact. That’s probably where Rends got his idea that “no hint” was supported by “court documents,” but pleadings are just claims, not evidence at all, and attorneys can actually lie in them, i.e., make claims that they should know are misleading, as was certainly the case here.

      LENR Forum has no means of cleaning up discussions, summarizing them and correcting errors. Even if it did, it’s work, and work takes workers, and they are all on holiday. They had a volunteer. They rejected the application and then banned him.

  2. Updated with flabber on LENR Forum from Rends, repeating error in the face of correction, as if “obvious,” when it is obviously incorrect. Obviously, he hasn’t read the record.

    1. Alan, as LENR moderator, I don’t mind. He has views I don’t share but nevertheless is rational.

      Rends, as moderator, is worrying. Rends seems incapable of reading English, as evidenced in the post you quoted and subsequent exchange with me. I don’t see how with such a weak grasp of the meaning of words he can sensibly moderate.

      1. Rends may only moderate in German, but, as I wrote, I’ve never seen any abusive moderator action from him. However, I have seen that from Alan: arbitrary and sometimes offensive deletions without warning or opportunity to recover, and, of course, I was banned by Alan, apparently. (Nobody ever acknowledged it; the occasion was, however, his extensive deletions of posts — which most users would not notice, even deletions of their own content, the system does not notify users, nor anyone, apparently — which I found intolerable as a writer, and so I wrote that I would be boycotting the Forum unless this was addressed. I was immediately banned. The crime was pointing out moderator behavior. I had many times pointed out that if posts were off-topic, they could be moved.) Alan, as a user and moderator, is snarky and frequently off topic. The problem is not Alan, the problem is structural, and that must be traced back to the Owner, whoever has root admin privileges with the permission to use them. It is also the responsibility of the community. We tolerate it.

        I think I became a target for Alan, partly because he was defending Rends, who had posted links to the Sifferkollian conspiracy theory pages on thenewfire, and I had deconstructed them.

      2. One point, THH, in your conversation with Rends, you did not point specifically to the evidence that plainly contradicts his claim of “no hint.” Eric Walker finally confronted ele’s repeated “$250 million” trope. Would Eric confront Rends on something similarly evidence-free and contrary to plain sense? This idea of “they promised what they didn’t have and therefore were liars and cheats” is plainly Planet Rossi, Rossi clearly was fishing for that, but evidence was produced. What is likely is that Rends remembers Rossi’s claims and believes them. There isn’t only the Ampenergo memo, there is other disclosure, I’ll see if I can find it, and common sense. IH didn’t have the $10 million for the IP until just before it was due, either, and businesses almost never have large sums sitting in the bank; rather, they raise the funds when needed.

        1. There was an agreement with Woodford about $150 million more if needed. I covered this in New files with a $150 million tidbit The idea that Darden committed to a payment he could not possibly make is completely insane; it is only true if we assume the condition that Darden would not be able to convince Woodford — or someone else — to actually put up the money, except by deceiving them, i.e., lying.

          Sure. If Rossi did not show IH how to make devices that worked, that would pass independent testing, they had no intention of paying him merely because he put on some show. This much is true. They did pay Rossi the $10 million for the Validation Test show, that was the cost of their ticket to Rossi disclosure, they had accepted that risk, in spite of all the obvious appearances. To be sure, this trained Rossi to think he could get away with anything, that his magnificent shows were going to sell out, and all his hard work, sweating away in that terribly hot environment (funny he didn’t ever mention that until this year), would pay off. How could he know it would be wasted?

          There is more evidence linked from http://coldfusioncommunity.net/more-on-the-investment-flabber/#comment-4649. As pointed out there, Rends is probably relying in a citation by IH Fanboy, quoting a Rossi pleading that was highly deceptive, not supported by the exhibits presented. This is how Planet Rossi tropes are created and how they propagate, by users who assume that what others have written are true and not misleading.

  3. One thing about the money that is being talked about is that every year IH (and all the other players) will need to produce accounts and pay taxes. That means that people who do some digging will find out the truth or otherwise of all the rumours. There are legal implications for lying about the money.

    Similarly, if IH did get Rossi’s IP to actually run, and later try to sell it without acknowledging (and paying) Rossi, then he will have legal redress. They can’t “steal” the IP and get away with it.

    The point about VCs (Venture Capitalists) is that they are gamblers. Where most investors want to get a certain return on investment, VCs estimate the risks of losing their money and calculate whether the possible gains outweigh the risks so that, on balance, they gain more money than they lose, but it is known that since the investments are high-risk then a certain proportion will in fact fail and they’ll lose their money on those ones. In fact, if not enough projects fail then the VCs are not earning their money, since they ask a high percentage of the profits of those that succeed. No-one would take a low-risk project to a VC, after all – it costs too much.

    Analysing the risks correctly requires that the truth be told by the receivers of the VC backing. At least the truth as far as they know it. IH of course knew that Rossi tended to not tell the truth, which raised the risks somewhat, but the payback if Rossi had actually had some real technology was sky-high and a 1% probability of that was deemed to be worth the risk. Dewey states that 1% probability as their cut-off point.

    I think that all of the above should be pretty self-evident to most people who have been watching, and that most of these points have been made at various times. Everyone (IH, Woodford etc.) should have been aware of the risks of backing Rossi. There’s also an obvious risk in backing LENR in general, since the main scientific consensus is still that it is a measurement error.

    Still, the big profits go to the people who correctly bet that some fringe science can be turned into a technology. Of course, the profits can be even bigger if you can get the government to put the initial research money in and you then utilise that research, but that’s another story….

    As I see it, IH began with a fairly low estimation of achieving success, and during the Doral test that estimation went down (below 1%) because of the way Rossi ran his operation, stopping any verification of his process. It seems unlikely that Tom Darden would have kept such estimations secret from Woodford or anyone else who intended to invest, since that would open him to being sued for fraud by such investors. Since we haven’t seen Woodford suing Tom Darden, it stands to sense that they must have been happy, and are still happy, with his honesty in telling them what he knew of the risks.

    Though we’re not privy to what went on between IH and Woodford, that lack of any legal proceedings implies strongly that there is no problem with that relationship and that Woodford are happy with the information they received from IH. They may be annoyed with Rossi, though.

    Though we may not be able to trust what people say, what they do is a reliable indicator.

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