Deep Capture podcast series episode 2 [21:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (668)

This episode includes clips of Patrick Byrne’s recent interview on the Terry Gilberg radio talk show, in addition to a brief look at the role of stock message board “bashers” in the manipulation process. This, in turn, leads to an interesting look at shocking irony surrounding the recent destruction of Bear Stearns at the hands of illegal naked short selling hedge funds.

You can learn more about contract stock message board basher Yolanda Holtzee here.

Finally, rock star attorney Wes Christian comments on this week’s filing of a lawsuit by shareholders of Taser International against several broker-dealers thought to be complicit in the long-running manipulation of Taser’s stock.

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Theme music for the Deep Capture Podcast composed by Derek K. Miller.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox appeared before a US Senate commitee to discuss the Bear Stearns implosion. Be sure to watch this video to the last second. To decode the Washington-speak, note that Senator Tester asked Chairman Cox about short selling, not naked short selling.

By December 2006, the cover-up of widespread stock manipulation by favored hedge funds with friends in the financial press was starting to unravel among all thinking observers. Thus, Jim Cramer repositioned himself from a total skeptic who derided this as just some wacky theory of a malcontent CEO, to something Jim Cramer knew about all along and in which he had participated (because he is such a crucial part of the “smart money”). Which is, of course, precisely the claim I made about him in the Miscreants’ Ball.

As I have shown, in his writing Jim is up-front about his own law-breaking. However, the previous video, with its confession of participation in crimes, apparently embarrassed Jim when it became public. He continued to shift his position, now remaining vague about whether he is talking about himself, or about other people. (I am reminded of something I figured out when I was about 10: When adults espouse psychological theories about how others behave, they were generally talking about themselves. Please remember that hypothesis as you watch the following two clips.)

On March 2, 2007, Jim explained what he he did when he ran a hedge fund. Or is he just saying that this is what he saw when he ran a hedge fund? He stays just coy enough that it is hard to say, but after he gets it off his chest, he acts like a blow-hard with his colleague, trying, in my view, to to bury psychically what has just confessed publicly.

Then, on March 9, 2007, Jim Cramer explicitly stated on his TV show that hedge funds work with compliant members of the financial media to manipulate stock. In other words, he said just what I had been saying for two years, that he had been deriding.

When I first began to raise the issues being explored in DeepCapture, I was roundly and severely criticized, especially by CNBC, and especially by Jim Cramer. They did this though they (or at least, Jim Cramer) knew I was right. Once the issues raised by DeepCapture became impossible to ignore, Jim Cramer began dealing with his guilty knowledge by explaining these issues to the public, in the process saying precisely what I had been saying since 2004, for which I had been roundly and continuously criticized, especially by CNBC, especially by Jim Cramer. Thus, if the preceding pieces have a surreal quality, it means you were paying attention.

In early November, 2006 CNBC finally manages to air a simple, straightforward report on the issue that I had fought to bring to their attention, without deriding it as being about me, Overstock, how many toasters we sold at Christmas and at what margins, etc.

Charles Gasparino reported on an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to which he, evidently, had been invited to offer guidance.

Dan (”We have buckets of ink and barrels of cash to crush them”) Colarusso serves his normal obfuscatory function by confusing the legal act of shorting with the illegal act of naked shorting, spinning and downplaying (I call it the “short sellers build strong bones and teeth” speech).

Becky Quick lays off.

And then, when the news breaks of the NYSE following up with a crack-down of their own, the same morning gang which has derided, downplayed and covered up this issue suddenly is talking about “legal murder” of companies through stock manipulation.

On April 26, 2006 Charles Gasparino delivered this story regarding SEC Chairman Chris Cox’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As a prefatory comment, however, I should note that as far as I can tell, Charles Gasparino is the only honest reporter at CNBC (Donny Deutsche is honest but he is not a reporter, and Becky Quick is a reporter, but she does not go out of her way to be honest or dishonest).

There is, I believe, something important to be learned from this fact. Most Wall Street reporters I meet seem soft. A few are dumb (don’t ask Joe Nocera, Roddy Boyd, or Tim Mullaney to whip up a batch of jet-fuel for you) but most are just soft. They may be capable of writing critical pieces regarding this or that executive or company, if spoon-fed the requisite details by their hedge fund sources, but they are constitutionally incapable of thinking critically about the Establishment from whence they spring.

Hence, for example, as previous posts have shown, CNBC adopted a Party Line that recognized no distinction between short selling and naked short selling, insisted that Patrick Byrne’s beef is just that his stock went down, short selling always builds strong bones and teeth for America, and anyone questioning this received wisdom must be wacky wacky wacky. This Party Line was parroted with fervor by Herb Greenberg, Jim Cramer, Joe Kernan, Dan Colarusso, and the rest of the CNBC gang.

Charles Gasparino, on the other hand, is a tough working-class Italian guy from the Bronx. He is not soft and, as as a result, he had the character to speak up. This makes Gasparino seem extraordinary. In fact, however, I think he is how normal journalists were, one or two generations ago.

Herb Greenberg (”The Worst Business Journalist in America”) appeared on TV with his fluffy dog to criticize my recent announcement that I celebrated receiving an SEC subpoena. In that press release I had written, “I may be the first CEO in history to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena.” Herb thought this was outrageous, and said so. He also opined regarding what the SEC subpoena was and was not about: he was just guessing.

A year later, in true “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” fashion, Herb would write a story claiming that I had tried to cover-up my receipt of an SEC subpoena.

Having done everything they could to twist, distort, and suppress the story, in late March, 2006 CNBC wonders with faux innocence why 60 Minutes would be picking up the story.

Becky Quick invited me on CNBC. I expected another CNBC spin-job and was not disappointed. Becky began with a half-truth about an Overstock accounting restatement, failing to mention that it was a restatement up (in other words, Overstock’s auditors had decided that Overstock had kept its books too conservatively - I am not sure if I have ever heard of such a “corporate restatement”).

Becky seemed put-off at my correction, then proceeded to bicker in an attempt to sound like a hard-headed journalist. Unfortunately, as you will see, in her eagerness she began tripping over her own statements, simultaneously accusing me of orchestrating a federal investigation and not knowing the first thing about it. Anticipating that something like this was going to happen, and having grown tired of going on CNBC and having them talk over me in order to prevent my actual claims from getting aired, I slipped into a Morchai Vanunu routine.

If you forgot who Mordechai Vanunu is, this is he (and yes, I had prepared the sign before showing up at the CNBC studio in San Francisco).

Herb Green goes into a flop-sweat over his SEC subpoena.

In February, 2006, Herb Greenberg joined Jim Cramer in spinning their SEC subpoenas, and Jim discards his casually. What they do not mention is that upon receiving his subpoena, Jim Cramer had immediately begun selling large amounts of TheStreet.com, without informing the public of his subpoena (according to his own lawyer, Jim Cramer had never previously sold TheStreet.com stock).

On October 14, 2005, CNBC began covering the implosion of of Refco, a broker-dealer which was under criminal investigation for its involvement in naked short selling. With admirable aplomb, Patch met the spinning and downplaying with a simple statement: “OK, then just settle the trades.”

In the week after the Miscreants’ ball call and that day’s interview with Ron Insana, I was invited to appear to debate Jeff Mathews. Jeff is a deacon in his church and a four-flusher who published atrociously false statements about a female co-worker of mine (statements which Deacon Mathews quietly made disappear, without apologizing, once he learned he had misspoken), and a crony of David Rocker. Evidently Jeff appeared without any preparation, and judging from even Insana’s reaction, had his head handed to him (if I say so myself).

More interesting than Jeff’s smarmy squirming and Ron Insana’s reaction thereto, however, is Ron’s spinning, which has become more heavy-handed than it had been the previous week. Evidently the goal was to make unthinkable the simple truth that the lawsuit concerned illegal acts sworn to by witnesses and participants, and the broader claims about naked short selling concerned the health over hundreds of firms, the jobs and savings of millions, and the fragility of the capital market: thus, Ron seems to have been following instructions to insist upon a Party Line that “Byrne is suing because he is mad these people say mean things about Overstock, but if only he focused on his business” blah blah blah. As should be clear by now, that became the doctrinal truth that CNBC journalists, Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera, and Roddy Boyd were to reinforce in subsequent months with great fervor, so as to preclude the public from reaching any substantive understanding about the claims made or issues at stake.

On August 12, 2005, I launched an offensive to expose crimes and corruption on Wall Street that I believed were leading to the destruction of dozens (perhaps hundreds) of companies, the loss of countless jobs, the theft of billions of dollars, and quite possibly, a systemic meltdown. I did this with a webcast I called, “The Miscreants’ Ball”.

In this offensive, which I have called a “mitzvah”, “crusade”, and (when speaking of how my opponents view it) a “jihad”, I alleged that:

1) The SEC had grown inappropriately close to Wall Street (which SEC Senior Investigator Gary Aguirre and a Senate Judiciary Committee report have since confirmed);

2) The New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was a corrupt finger-puppet (subsequent events have confirmed the corruption, and I am waiting for anyone in the press to see the “finger-puppet” implication of Spitzer’s favorite girl, Ashlee, living rent-free in the summer home of Spitzer’s biggest donor, Jim Chanos);

3) Certain hedge funds had grown inappropriately close to certain journalists of the financial press (which CNBC’s own Jim Cramer has since confirmed);

4) As a result of the indolence of the SEC, New York Attorney General, and financial press, a circle of hedge funds were taking down companies through:

• naked short-selling (which SEC Chairman Chris Cox has since confirmed);
• class action lawsuits by Milberg Weiss (which a DOJ indictment and a stack of convictions has since confirmed);
• “independent research” which was in fact bought-and-paid for (to which I already had a stack of affidavits attesting).

I hope, then, dear reader, that I do not assume too much when I write: perhaps in retrospect these claims are not so improbable as they may have first sounded.

The afternoon of my Miscreants’ Ball presentation, I was invited to go onto CNBC to be interviewed by Ron Insana, and the spinning began. Over time, that spin-job would be composed of at least five elements:

1) Referring to the Overstock suit against Rocker and Gradient as being about short-selling while glossing over the allegations regarding an inappropriate relationship between Rocker and the putatively independent research house (e. g., letting Rocker order, edit, preview, and front-run the reports on Overstock.com);

2) Referring to the case against David Rocker as being about naked short selling, when in fact the suit did not mention naked short selling;

3) Continuously failing to distinguish between short selling and naked short selling (which is like failing to distinguish between sex and sexual harassment);

4) Relying upon the preceding vaguenesses in support of a cover-up, that cover-up being that this was simply a fight about short selling, and which insisted upon the benefits of short selling (without distinguishing it from the illegal offshoot);

5) Overstock was not a good company, and therefore none of my claims about the capital markets could be true. (Yes, it is an obvious non sequitur, but not so obvious that it was not blindly parroted by more or less the entirety of the New York financial press, without a trace of critical thinking regarding its logic.)

The obfuscation that began in this interview would in time become a roar.

In the summer of 2004 I went on Kudlow & Cramer to discuss 2004 Q2 results. We were still growing extraordinarily fast (88% in real terms, and gross profits were growing 106%). Our GAAP losses of $2.3 million on $87.8 million in sales for the quarter, or 2.6%, were in line with our strategy of maintaining high rates of growth while running roughly break-even, which I had publicly defined as +/- 1% on an annual basis. Incidentally, Overstock went on to finish 2004, our fifth full year in business, a half-billion dollar company, having shown real growth of 84% and gross profit growth of 158%, and losing $5 million (that is, running at -1% net income on a GAAP basis), and generating positive $25 million of operating cash flow.

Note that Jim Cramer reads from David Rocker here. Jim would later claim that he never met David Rocker except for one time in a grocery store.

On April 30, 2004, I went on Kudlow and Cramer. Larry Kudlow and Jim Cramer invited me on to discuss the upcoming Google IPO, which was being performed as Dutch Auction IPO (pioneered by Bill Hambrecht, and employed by Overstock in its IPO two years previously). Jim in particular seemed to welcome my explanation of how corrupt the IPO game is on Wall Street, and the virtues of this alternative.

Interview: Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, discusses the company’s revenues and earnings
836 words
23 April 2004 CNBC: Kudlow & Cramer English (c) Copyright 2004, CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

LARRY KUDLOW, co-host:  Overstock.com reduced losses with 181 percent increase in sales. So what’s next? We’ve got Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.

Patrick, welcome back to K&C. You had pretty good numbers. Your stock is on a nice little run here. So I congratulate you for that. But once again, once again, you are confusing the heck out of me and everybody else with your arguments about gross vs. GAAP. I’m not really sure why you continue to do this and what it is you’re trying to hide.

Mr. PATRICK BYRNE (Overstock.com Chairman & CEO): Well, thank you for having me back, Mr. Cramer.

KUDLOW: No, I’m Kudlow, actually.

Mr. BYRNE: Oh, I’m sorry.

MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA, co-host:  I’m Cramer.

KUDLOW: And this is Michelle.

Mr. BYRNE: You know, I can’t see either of you, so I just…

KUDLOW: OK, fair enough.

Mr. BYRNE: What…

KUDLOW: But what about–you are the only CEO who publishes this confusing issue about gross vs. GAAP revenues and earnings. Why do you do it, sir?

Mr. BYRNE: No good deed goes unpunished. I’ve tried to explain the economics of our business. I wrote a three-page letter this time. Last quarter, I wrote a 12-page letter. Maybe it is confusing. I thought I’m trying to do a good thing. And really, you know, the letters that the shareholders see are pretty much the letters that the board see. It’s so they can really understand the business. But I can understand in today’s age why people take that for there must be smoke and mirrors going on. But so if you just want to look at GAAP numbers, we’ll just look at gap numbers.

CARUSO-CABRERA: And let’s talk about those GAAP numbers. Are you ever going to make any money here?

Mr. BYRNE: I think so, yes.

CARUSO-CABRERA: You’re not profitable yet. When do you expect to be profitable?

Mr. BYRNE: Well, we’ve been there for–been there, slipped back under. We’re minus 2.4 percent at this point. For every dollar we sell, we lose minus 2.4 cents. Put it this way. I can think of one other company, Amazon, that grew to half a billion dollars in sales in five years. This is our fifth year. We launched our site October ‘99, and I think we’ll do half a billion dollars this year. I think they’re the only other company that got there. I think we’ll–you know, they got there–the year they got there, they lost a billion and a half. We’ll get there this year. Yeah, we’ll make a million, lose a million. We’ll be within a half a percent of break-even.

KUDLOW: Well, yeah. You know, your business plan, you’re kind of the low-end eBay, if you will, or Amazon. But you got every right to do it, and it looks like you’re having some success. But what is it that you’re hiding on this? In other words, normal gap earnings takes revenues less expenses, brings down certain one-time charges, and that gets us to the profitable bottom line. Are you trying to say to us you’re not making as much in sales revenue or that you will have a better future? I mean, it’s utterly confusing to me.

Mr. BYRNE: Well, first of all, I’m all about gap. I have been so critical of the companies that do–I don’t believe in one-time charges; I don’t believe in EBITDA. If somebody talks EBITDA, put your hand on your wallet; they’re a crook.

KUDLOW: So if you say gap profit–gap gross profit is up 83 percent, isn’t that misleading, this idea of gap gross profit? As Michelle said, you’re not scoring profits yet. You may next month, but you’re not yet.

Mr. BYRNE: Larry, that’s…

KUDLOW: Quick answer.

Mr. BYRNE: …that’s…

KUDLOW: Quick answer.

Mr. BYRNE: Quick answer is that’s a silly question. Gap has a concept called revenue, a concept called gross profit, a concept called net profit. Those are gap–a basic accounting course teaches that.

KUDLOW: But every company of the 5,000 reporters have net, not gross. Anyway…

CARUSO-CABRERA: You know what? We’ve got to go.

Mr. BYRNE: Well, we give them that, too.

KUDLOW: …I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it. Anyway, thank you for coming back.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Thank you.

Mr. BYRNE: OK.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Despite all that.

Mr. BYRNE: Thanks.

CARUSO-CABRERA: All right. Thank you very much, sir. Coming up next, the K&C and my view on today’s financial headlines. And later, we talk trucking e-commerce and outsourcing.

See the video here.

Interview: Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, discusses the company’s revenues and earnings
836 words
23 April 2004
CNBC: Kudlow & Cramer English (c) Copyright 2004, CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

LARRY KUDLOW, co-host: Overstock.com reduced losses with 181 percent increase in sales. So what’s next? We’ve got Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne.

Patrick, welcome back to K&C. You had pretty good numbers. Your stock is on a nice little run here. So I congratulate you for that. But once again, once again, you are confusing the heck out of me and everybody else with your arguments about gross vs. GAAP. I’m not really sure why you continue to do this and what it is you’re trying to hide.

Mr. PATRICK BYRNE (Overstock.com Chairman & CEO): Well, thank you for having me back, Mr. Cramer.

KUDLOW: No, I’m Kudlow, actually.

Mr. BYRNE: Oh, I’m sorry.

MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA, co-host: I’m Cramer.

KUDLOW: And this is Michelle.

Mr. BYRNE: You know, I can’t see either of you, so I just…

KUDLOW: OK, fair enough.

Mr. BYRNE: What…

KUDLOW: But what about–you are the only CEO who publishes this confusing issue about gross vs. GAAP revenues and earnings. Why do you do it, sir?

Mr. BYRNE: No good deed goes unpunished. I’ve tried to explain the economics of our business. I wrote a three-page letter this time. Last quarter, I wrote a 12-page letter. Maybe it is confusing. I thought I’m trying to do a good thing. And really, you know, the letters that the shareholders see are pretty much the letters that the board see. It’s so they can really understand the business. But I can understand in today’s age why people take that for there must be smoke and mirrors going on. But so if you just want to look at GAAP numbers, we’ll just look at GAAP numbers.

CARUSO-CABRERA: And let’s talk about those GAAP numbers. Are you ever going to make any money here?

Mr. BYRNE: I think so, yes.

CARUSO-CABRERA: You’re not profitable yet. When do you expect to be profitable?

Mr. BYRNE: Well, we’ve been there for–been there, slipped back under. We’re minus 2.4 percent at this point. For every dollar we sell, we lose minus 2.4 cents. Put it this way. I can think of one other company, Amazon, that grew to half a billion dollars in sales in five years. This is our fifth year. We launched our site October ‘99, and I think we’ll do half a billion dollars this year. I think they’re the only other company that got there. I think we’ll–you know, they got there–the year they got there, they lost a billion and a half. We’ll get there this year. Yeah, we’ll make a million, lose a million. We’ll be within a half a percent of break-even.

KUDLOW: Well, yeah. You know, your business plan, you’re kind of the low-end eBay, if you will, or Amazon. But you got every right to do it, and it looks like you’re having some success. But what is it that you’re hiding on this? In other words, normal GAAP earnings takes revenues less expenses, brings down certain one-time charges, and that gets us to the profitable bottom line. Are you trying to say to us you’re not making as much in sales revenue or that you will have a better future? I mean, it’s utterly confusing to me.

Mr. BYRNE: Well, first of all, I’m all about GAAP. I have been so critical of the companies that do–I don’t believe in one-time charges; I don’t believe in EBITDA. If somebody talks EBITDA, put your hand on your wallet; they’re a crook.

KUDLOW: So if you say GAAP profit–GAAP gross profit is up 83 percent, isn’t that misleading, this idea of GAAP gross profit? As Michelle said, you’re not scoring profits yet. You may next month, but you’re not yet.

Mr. BYRNE: Larry, that’s…

KUDLOW: Quick answer.

Mr. BYRNE: …that’s…

KUDLOW: Quick answer.

Mr. BYRNE: Quick answer is that’s a silly question. GAAP has a concept called revenue, a concept called gross profit, a concept called net profit. Those are GAAP–a basic accounting course teaches that.

KUDLOW: But every company of the 5,000 reporters have net, not gross. Anyway…

CARUSO-CABRERA: You know what? We’ve got to go.

Mr. BYRNE: Well, we give them that, too.

KUDLOW: …I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it. Anyway, thank you for coming back.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Thank you.

Mr. BYRNE: OK.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Despite all that.

Mr. BYRNE: Thanks.

CARUSO-CABRERA: All right. Thank you very much, sir. Coming up next, the K&C and my view on today’s financial headlines. And later, we talk trucking e-commerce and outsourcing.

See it here.

After releasing Overstock’s Q4, 2003 results, I drove to a studio in Salt Lake City and appeared on Kudlow & Cramer for the second time (and third time on CNBC).

On December 2, 2003, I appeared on Kudlow & Cramer for the first time. Larry Kudlow and Jim Cramer both seemed like fine, reasonable guys, and they asked intelligent questions. This interview was a condensed version of what it is like to walk into a hedge fund for the first time and explain one’s business.

On November 28, 2003 I appeared on CNBC for the first time, and the interview they conducted was perfectly fair. They asked me pointed, intelligent questions, and let me answer. We discussed sourcing and supply lines, as well as an issue related to Tiffany. They noted Overstock’s losses, but also noted that we had had a GAAP-profitable quarter (and questioned whether Amazon had or had not by that point). I was optimistic about the future, hoping that the trajectory that Overstock was then on (crazy-high growth with roughly break-even results, and a minimum use of cash) could continue indefinitely.

It did, in fact, continue for two years, through 2005. But around the end of 2005 our wings shredded and we had a tough two years getting things back under control. But at the time of this interview, things looked like they were on track.

Those who would hijack the legal institutions shielding society from Wall Street perfidy must also hijack the political institutions providing them oversight, and hijack the discourse about those legal and political institutions, and hijack the social institutions mediating that discourse. The capture must run deep to be stable. So deep, in fact, that records of the past become untrustworthy.

The records of the past have in fact become untrustworthy. Stories have disappeared from databases and video clips from websites. It has happened as recently as this week: a clip to which “The Story of Deep Capture” linked as evidence stopped working. And just today has begun a new round of clogging the discourse regarding our claims (the simple difference between legal short-selling and illegal stock counterfeiting being too fine a distinction for almost any journalist to recognize when characterizing my position).

This chapter is meant to remedy that situation. It will serve as an archive of material to which the rest of DeepCapture may link, with little editorial comment. Those who wish to take issue with DeepCapture’s archiving and deconstruction of their copyrighted articles and videos (and, perhaps, emails) know where to find us.

 

 Deep Capture podcast series episode 1 [21:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (489)

In this episode, I demonstrate the existence of illegal short side stock market manipulation, and point to recent events as evidence that those responsible for this form of fraud will shortly taste some long-delayed justice.

Market Reform proponent Patrick Byrne also offers commentary.

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Theme music composed by Derek K. Miller: a musical genius, a great guy, and a soon-to-be (I pray) cancer survivor.