Business Insider is currently running an ad for Sovereign Investor Daily. This ad, and the page it leads to, is as good an illustration as any for the inexperienced of the first rule of the Internet: anything you read about investing should be handled with rigorous skepticism.

By “rigorous” I mean that everything you read should be subject to the same set of rules.

And by “skepticism”, I mean that rather than taking what you read to heart, you should consider it objectively. I tend to do things intuitively, which is to say I have a general list of rules which are not completely formulated and not always followed – but I’d benefit if I had more discipline. So let me dump some rules out of my brain for both my readers’ and my benefit.

1. Are there any checkable claims being made? If so, check a few. Snopes.com appears to be a good source for checking certain claims.
2. Think about the language being used. All articles are meant to be persuasive, but what’s the methodology? Are they presenting facts (which can be checked) in such a way as to guide you to a reasonable conclusion? Or are they using language in such a way as to take you to their preferred conclusion even if it’s not warranted? Extreme adjectives, overuse of adjectives, a breathless tone – all are clues that the snake oil is right behind their back. Beware of emotion.
3. Does it pass the “smell” test? Does it seem ridiculous?
4. Are they making the mistaken argument of appeal to authority? This is a proportionality problem, because there is some warranted credibility in authorities with verifiable track records – but even those need to be examined with a skeptical mind. For example, if an economist or investing professional is credited with predicting market crashes over and over, is he that good – or is he a “permabear”, someone who predicts disaster at every turn and occasionally gets it right, like the old broken analog clock? Asking pertinent questions, such as “Does he also accurately predict market highs?” can be enlightening – if discomforting to your authority. Always be an honest black sheep – not a sheared and frightened normal sheep.
5. Are your emotional buttons being pushed? What are your emotional buttons? If you don’t know them, sit down and figure them out – if you’re married, use your spouse as they’ll know them better than yourself.

So the title of the web page in question is

80% Stock Market Crash To Strike in 2016, Economist Warns

It’s awfully darn late in 2016, now isn’t it? Nothing out in market land appears to warrant a crash of that severity, although I’ll grant the American banking giants are not as well-regulated as they should be. So I read on:

But there is one distinct warning that should send chills down your spine … that of James Dale Davidson. Davidson is the famed economist who correctly predicted the collapse of 1999 and 2007.

Davidson now warns, “There are three key economic indicators screaming SELL. They don’t imply that a 50% collapse is looming – it’s already at our doorstep.”

And if Davidson calls for a 50% market correction, one should pay heed.

Indeed, his predictions have been so accurate, he’s been invited to shake hands and counsel the likes of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — and he’s had the good fortune to befriend and convene with George Bush Sr., Steve Forbes, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher, Sir Roger Douglas and even Boris Yeltsin.

They know that when Davidson makes a prediction, he backs it up. True to form, in a new controversial video, Davidson uses 20 unquestionable charts to prove his point that a 50% stock market crash is here.

Most alarming of all, is what Davidson says will cause the collapse. It has nothing to do with the China meltdown, Wall Street speculation or even the presidential election. Instead, it is linked back to a little-known economic “curse” that our Founding Fathers warned our elected officials about … a curse that was recently triggered.

As a skeptic, first I think, Excuse me, who? Never heard of the guy. OK, so off I go to do a little research. Wikipedia lists him very, very briefly. I note the flimsy appeal to authority – well, you shook hands with da President, didja? So did everyone else in those crowds he speaks to! –  as there’s really nothing to back up these claims.

And then a 50%-80% market correction is calculated to hit American investors’ biggest button – the fear of losing money. As researchers have noted, investors fear losing money more than they lust after making money – this is known as risk aversion, as Bankrate.com explains. I have personally eliminated this emotional button and replaced it with Opportunity!, but I know when I see it in an article of dubious worth, it’s a red flag that this is manipulative.

More interestingly is this reference to the Founding Fathers, which suggests this is targeted at the segment of the conservative crowd that tends to worship our Revolutionary War heroes – regardless of how far removed they may be from modern finance. While this is also a big red flag, it’s also worth a giggle as it’s both a little odd, and taking advantage of a blind spot specific to conservatives.

Later we get

(It’s unconventional and even controversial, but proven to work.)

Uh, if it works, it’s not controversial. Simple as that. But it’s an intriguing statement for the uninitiated.

So let’s stop mucking about, put Sovereign Investor Daily on our informal list of manipulative web sites, and as the next question:

Is it ethical for such web sites to exist?

I suppose the defensive strategy would be to invoke the First Amendment and then sit tight, little weasel eyes glinting in the light of the courtroom. After all, this is all opinion and if someone pays more to get more opinion, that’s their right, right? Right.¹ But that doesn’t really address the question, and, if you accept that the Golden Rule is a good ad hoc definition of ethics, then I think it becomes immediately apparent that our little weasels are unethical.

But I don’t really see how to prevent it, on the one hand, and correct it on the other. So that leads to the next question:

Are ethics and the Internet incompatible?

To my mind, if we were all unethical, the Internet would collapse from the sheer weight of scams, on the one hand, and burnt users burning their computers in protest. That’s not happening as the major retailers work very hard to make customers happy – there are tangible consequences to being an ethical entity. Perhaps the tangible benefits of ethics will entice most entities on the web to be middlin’ ethical – and the rest, like this site, will exist and perform the evolutionary duty of eating up the unwary. Or, more accurately, training them in the art of wariness and skepticism² – which most folks could use more training in.

¹Who can resist writing “right” three times in a row? Right. Not me.

² For those interested in skepticism, a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer is not out of line. They do not publish most of their articles online, so far as I know.