I agree. I remember back when I still talked about

I agree. I remember back when I still talked about this investment in public and the vast majority of people I mentioned it to instantly wrote it off as a scam and told me I would lose all my money simply because it was a penny stock. I should have heeded their warning. Instead, I arrogantly ignored them, thought that I had stumbled across a diamond in the rough, and bought into the vision Gerald presented and rationalized myself into thinking that there were just too many "irons in the fire" for this company to ever fail the way it has. I watched many other OTC stocks crash and burn, but those all seemed like clear scams to me. I thought this company was different, even with all the warning signs, some of which should have been HUGE red flags. I guess it was a combination of strong desire to make a lot of money (greed), paired with Gerald's continuous reassurance and optimistic outlook. Hind sight of course is 20/20, but I am still very disappointed in myself, and taken aback by my own naivety, to lose so much money in such a foolish investment.

Now, whether or not Gerald is a scam artist, or all of this is just the result of a series of unfortunate events can be debated. But one of the main things that really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth is that I think it would have shown integrity and respect to shareholders for Gerald to have voluntarily taken a salary cut at some point from its current level, which was greatly increased via a shareholder vote right before things started really going downhill fast. It's one thing to jack up your pay if you are performing and making money for your shareholders, it's another thing to jack up your pay and then run the company into the ground.