STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 26 December 2012

[Demeter]

43. Boob tube recycling business gets busted

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/boob-tube-recycling-business-gets-busted-2012-12-26?siteid=YAHOOB

Brandon Richter and Tor Olson developed what might have been one of the world’s most amazing business models were it not for a few pesky environmental regulations. They got people to pay them to take away their old cathode ray tubes. They then shipped these boob tubes — from obsolete TVs and computers — to China where other people would pay them again for this junk.

This was the entrepreneurial equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Imagine owning a factory where suppliers stood in line at the front door to pay you for the commodities that they gave to you. Then, at the back door, customers lined up to pay you again for this very same stuff.

This was the business model that Richter, 38 years old, of Highlands Ranch, Colo., and Olson, 37 years old, of Parker, Colo., perfected at their company, Executive Recycling Inc. They had boob tubes coming and going, and they got paid on the come and the go.

China exports so much junk to the U.S., you have to admire a couple of guys who shipped it right back. Except on Friday, a jury in Denver’s Federal District Court convicted these boob-tube magnates on several felony charges related to the illegal disposal of electronic waste, smuggling, obstruction, mail fraud and wire fraud. Executive Recycling collected used electronics from consumers, businesses, and governments. It was doing business across Colorado, with the cities of Broomfield and Boulder, El Paso County, Jefferson County Public Schools, Cherry Creek School District, The Children’s Hospital, Centura Health Hospital, ADT Security, and even the company that published the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post...Executive Recycling advertised that this waste would be disposed of in compliance with all local, state and federal laws, and that it would all be done “properly, right here in the U.S.”

MORE COMPLEXITY AND CONFUSION AND A CRIMINAL TRIAL....