Replies

The company never needs to make money. By the time these guys on the front end get done pumping and dumping their stock, the little shareholder (and mutual funds, etc) will take the fall. My post from October 2, 2007:

I just took a peek at how Bill Jones [California's ex-SecOfState and US Senate (non) candidate] is doing in his ethanol venture he entered with the ex-Enron dudes--Pacific Ethanol (PEIX).
So far, the stock went public (through a reverse acquisition) in the $10 dollar range, rising above $40 in May 2006, and currently trading under $9 dollars per share at a whopping P/E ratio of over 220. Since April 2006, insiders have cashed in 4.9 million shares of stock for income exceeding $1,200,000,000, with Jones and his son in law being on the receiving end of $530 million (Jones still holds 1.3 million shares). Insiders have now reduced their ownership to less than 20% (The DFA ownership % is also declining significantly). In 2006, after losing millions for three years, they were almost in a position to break even but issued $84 million in preferred stock dividends bringing them to a net loss of $87 million for the year (on sales of $226 million). That preferred stock is owned by none other than Cascade Investment, LLC (a Bill Gates investment arm) so all of the common shareholders now subordinated their interest to Gates.
I liked this paragraph from their 10K:
On January 18, 2007, California’s Governor signed an executive order directing the California Air Resource Board, or CARB, to implement a Low Carbon Fuels Standard for transportation fuels. The Governor’s office estimates that the standard will have the effect of increasing current renewable fuels use in California by three to five times by the year 2020.

The same game has been played with SunPower Corp (SPWR) and probably dozens of others.