I don't understand many things about this newsletter stuff. Ron Paul claims he was aware of them but did not do the "day to day" stuff. His signature (fake one) was on it. Why? IF my fake, or real, signature was on a document that others were going to read you can bet your booties I would know exactly what was in that document. It worries me that he does not know what was in them. If he did not pay that much attention to things back then, will he now?
That's because you're projecting your own experience, and, for lack of a better phrase, "small time" endeavors onto a large-scale investment and political newsletter operation. As an example, do you think, say, Rupert Murdock, publisher of countless magazines and newspapers, all bearing his name, actually reads and is aware of every single word in all of his publications? Do you think he reads every single word in even one of his publications? And he's a full-time publisher, Paul at the time was a full-time doctor.
Another example, I used to work for Olan Mills, the company. The company is owned by the Mills family, headed by Olan Mills II, a real guy. His name is on everything, including the pictures themselves. Do you think he personally looks at every picture the plant cranks out?
I used to create, on my own, different portrait packages in various price ranges, packages which were different from the "corporate approved" packages in the sales book (my packages sold better, because I knew my customers better). I'd create them on my computer and print them out on my printer, and they'd have the Olan Mills name and logo right there on the top of them. I did this successfully for years. Other salespeople I worked with also used the same packages I created. Those in management above me had no problem with it, because my sales, and thus their numbers, were higher than most.
Then, one day, someone showed a page of the packages to Olan Mills, the guy. He came unglued, apparently.
"I've never seen this before, yet my name is all over it! Why does this exist?!?!" Or something like that. He put an immediate stop to it and I (and my managers) were called in to explain our damm selves. I had tacitly figured it was easier to get forgiveness than permission. I was tacitly wrong. Whether the packages worked or not was irrelevant to this man, the fact that his name was on it and he didn't approve it, was.
That's actually kind of a parallel, apparently, to what happened with Paul's newsletters, that as soon as he became aware of what was going on, he put a stop to it. In my case I eventually got the permission to continue what I was doing, but it did not come easily. So it turns out, in that case, permission, a hard as it was to come by, came easier than forgiveness, as the forgiveness came only in the form of me not losing my job.
My point is, if you personally crank out a newsletter from the confines of your truck or home, you're likely to know every word contained within, but if you contract it out to someone else, even if it's a company you own, maybe not.
