What follows is PART 5 of a 15-PART series. The remaining installments will appear on Deep Capture in the coming days, after which point the story will be published in its entirety.
Where we left off, we had learned that CNBC’s Jim Cramer had declared Dendreon to be a “battleground stock.” We had also learned that Dendreon was later attacked by naked short sellers who illegally flooded the market with phantom stock, right at the time when the FDA’s advisory panel delivered the fantastic news that it had voted in favor of approving Dendreon’s prostate cancer treatment.
We had learned further that at the end of March, 2007 – right after the FDA’s vote, and right before Dendreon was to be derailed by some strange occurrences — only ten hedge funds on the planet held significant numbers of Dendreon put options (bets against the company). At least seven of those hedge funds are quite “colorful.”
We have learned the identities of four of the seven “colorful” hedge funds. Now we hear more from Jim Cramer, and discover the identity of the fifth hedge fund that stood to profit from the demise of Dendreon and its promising treatment for prostate cancer…
* * * * * * * *
“SELL! SELL! SELL!” shouted Jim Cramer on March 28, 2007.
The CNBC “journalist” assured his viewers that the FDA advisory panel would vote that Dendreon’s treatment for prostate cancer was neither safe nor effective (notwithstanding the fact that the FDA had given the treatment “priority review” status because Provenge had shown strong trial results and was destined for critically ill patients).
On the following day, when the FDA advisory panel voted unanimously that Provenge was safe and overwhelmingly that it was effective, Cramer said, once again, that he had made “a mistake.” By way of explanation, Cramer said that he had mixed up Dendreon’s treatment, Provenge, with Provaisic, the fictional drug from the 1993 Hollywood movie “The Fugitive,” in which Harrison Ford plays a doctor trying to expose an evil pharmaceutical company called Devlin MacGreggor.
But Cramer, again drawing upon his vast medical expertise, continued to insist that Provenge remained unlikely to gain FDA approval.
By this time, a number of bloggers and stock market observers had noted that Cramer, a former hedge fund manager, had recently made a video available to a limited number of high-paying subscribers to his financial news website, TheStreet.com. In this video, Cramer advised his viewers – mostly Wall Street operators — to illegally drive down stock prices.
“Maybe you need $10 million capital to knock [a stock] down,” Cramer had said. “It’s a fun game and it’s a lucrative game…By the way, no one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don’t care…Now, you can’t foment…You can’t create yourself an impression that a stock’s down. But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn’t understand it…This is just actually blatantly illegal…But I think it’s really important to foment…You get [the CNBC reporter]…talking about it as if there’s something wrong [with the stock]…Then you would call The Wall Street Journal and get the bozo reporter…if you’re not doing it maybe you shouldn’t be in the game.”
The bloggers and observers who pointed to this video as evidence of Cramer’s skulduggery also noted that Cramer had once planned to run his hedge fund out of the offices of Ivan Boesky, the famous co-conspirator of the criminal stock manipulator Michael Milken. When Boesky was indicted, Cramer instead went to work with Michael Steinhardt, the Boesky-Milken crony and “prominent” hedge fund manager whose father was the “biggest Mafia fence in America” and who was financier for the fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, for whom Steinhardt later arranged a pardon from Bill Clinton.
By 2007, I had (while working as an editor for the Columbia Journalism Review) spent close to a year studying the work of Cramer and a clique of influential journalists, most of whom had previously worked in high-level positions for Cramer’s website, TheStreet.com. I had discovered that the existence of short-side stock manipulation was denied by these journalists (including Cramer, when he was communicating to general audiences, as opposed to when he was explaining to select groups of Wall Street operators how to do the thing he was publicly saying does not exist).
The journalists were especially keen to whitewash the crime of naked short selling, and given the threat that this crime posed to so many companies and the very stability of the financial system, it seemed to me that these journalists were engaged in a cover-up of immense proportions.
I had also discovered that these journalists routinely reported negative stories that contained bias, falsehoods, and well-timed “mistakes.” The vast majority of these stories were sourced from one particular network of hedge fund managers and miscreants. Invariably, these stories were about public companies that the hedge fund managers had sold short. And, invariably, these stories were aired right at the time that the target companies were getting bombarded with phantom stock.
Moreover, most of the hedge funds and miscreants in this network seemed, like Jim Cramer, to be connected in important ways to the criminals Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky, or their close associates. One of them was David Rocker.
Last year, Rocker’s hedge fund, Copper River (previously known as Rocker Partners), was shut down. Soon after, Carol Remond, a Dow Jones Newswires journalist who had close ties to Rocker, revealed that Rocker’s most important trading strategy had been to abuse the SEC exemption allowing market makers to engage in naked short selling (see “Carol Remond Tells a Joke She Doesn’t Get” for details) .
According to Remond, when the SEC closed this loophole, making it more difficult for Rocker Partners/Copper River to work with option market makers to manufacture phantom stock, the hedge fund went out of business. What she left unexplained, however, was that such exploitation was illegal. Therefore, Dow Jones reporter Carol Remond was in fact bemoaning the tragedy that a hedge fund had to close because it was not able to break the law anymore.
Rocker had previously worked as a top trader for Michael Steinhardt, the Boesky and Genovese Mafia crony whose offices had also housed Jim Cramer’s hedge fund. In later years, Rocker became the largest outside shareholder in Cramer’s financial news website, TheStreet.com.
In 2006, staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission suspected that Rocker and other hedge funds in his network were working with an “independent” financial research shop called Gradient Analytics and a select group of journalists to disseminate false information in order to drive down stock prices. The SEC issued subpoenas to Rocker, Gradient, TheStreet.com, Jim Cramer, Herb Greenberg (a founding editor of TheStreet.com who was then working for MarketWatch.com and CNBC), and that Dow Jones reporter, Carol Remond.
In response, Cramer famously vandalized his subpoena on live television. Other journalists (most of them tied to Cramer) went berserk, claiming that Rocker had done no wrong and the SEC’s subpoenas had violated the media’s first amendment right to free speech. Soon after, the SEC said it would not enforce the subpoenas it had issued to journalists. And a year later, the commission dropped its investigation of Gradient and Rocker.
In May of 2006, shortly after the SEC announced that it would not enforce its subpoenas, a recently dismissed SEC attorney named Gary Aguirre wrote an eye-popping letter to the United States Congress in which he stated that he had led an SEC investigation into allegations of rampant naked short selling and insider trading at a hedge fund called Pequot Capital.
Aguirre said that his rank-and-file colleagues at the SEC believed that Pequot’s naked short selling had the potential to “seriously injure the financial markets,” but before he could complete his investigation, Aguirre’s superiors at the SEC, captured by powerful Wall Street interests, had fired him for political reasons.
Since then, a U.S. Congressional Committee has investigated and issued a lengthy report noting that there seemed to be evidence that Pequot was indeed engaged in “stock manipulation” (naked short selling). As for the SEC’s failure to fully investigate Aguirre’s allegations, the Congressional Committee concluded that the “picture is colored with overtones of a possible cover-up.”
The SEC inspector general also issued a report that backed up all of Aguirre’s claims.
Late in 2008, the SEC re-opened its investigation into Pequot Capital. And in May, 2009, Pequot manager Art Samberg shut down the fund, noting that the investigations had made the “situation increasingly untenable for the firm and for me.”
But from what is known publicly, the SEC is only looking into insider trading at Pequot. As for Aguirre’s investigation into Pequot’s alleged naked short selling – the crime that had the potential to “seriously injure the financial markets”—the SEC has said nothing.
Remember, as far as the SEC is concerned, illegal naked short selling is a big secret – “proprietary trading strategies.”
At any rate, it is worth noting that Cramer’s financial news website, TheStreet.com, had several founding partners. One was Cramer. Another was Marty Peretz, a Milken-Boesky crony who was–along with Marc Rich, Boesky, and the Genovese Mafia—a key limited partner of Michael Steinhardt (the hedge fund manager who gave Rocker his start and also incubated Cramer’s hedge fund).
A third founding partner of TheStreet.com was famously alleged to have engaged in rampant illegal naked short selling, just as David Rocker, once the largest outside shareholder of TheStreet.com, was reported (by Dow Jones reporter Carol Remond, unwittingly) to have engaged in rampant illegal naked short selling in cahoots with options market makers.
The name of this third founding partner of Cramer’s website, TheStreet.com, was…Pequot Capital, the hedge fund whose alleged naked short selling and insider trading were the targets of Gary Aguirre’s SEC investigation — the investigation that got quashed, leading to one of the greatest scandals in SEC history.
So it goes almost without saying that Pequot Capital was the fifth of seven “colorful” hedge funds that held large numbers of put options in Dendreon at the end of March, 2007 – right at the time when Cramer was shouting “SELL! SELL! SELL!” and criminal naked short sellers were flooding the market with at least 9 million phantom Dendreon shares.
* * * * * * * *
In addition to Cramer’s rants, there were other indications that Dendreon might be in the sights of some powerful players, and might therefore be in trouble – despite the fact that its treatment for prostate cancer seemed to be on the fast track to FDA approval.
On March 22, 2007, CNBC’s Mike Huckman wrote in a blog that he remembered “sitting at a table at a rare Dendreon analyst meeting a few years ago and someone from a Connecticut hedge fund leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘It [Provenge] doesn’t work.’” Huckman made no indication of questioning whether the hedge fund might have had a motive for saying that.
There were odd mutterings from other quarters as well. On the day before the FDA’s advisory panel met to vote on Provenge, Matthew Herper of Forbes magazine published an article casting doubts on Dendreon’s prospects. He wrote that “researchers, statisticians and Wall Street analysts are fiercely debating whether there is enough data about [Dendreon’s] radical new treatment.”
In fact, there was no “fierce” debate at all. For most Wall Street analysts, the calculation was rather simple. Given that Dendreon’s trials had shown that Provenge was safe, and given that the treatment was destined for end-stage patients (hence its “priority review” status), the advisory panel was likely to vote in its favor. In 97% of all cases, the FDA had followed the recommendations of its advisory panels. And when FDA advisory panels recommended approval for drugs destined for dying patients, the FDA had accepted its panels’ recommendations 100% of the time.
When the FDA approved treatments, the companies that developed them almost always saw their stock prices go up. So from the perspective of most Wall Street analysts, the future for Dendreon looked bright.
As for those “researchers and statisticians,” most agreed that Provenge was not only safe, but also effective. However, a small number of researchers and statisticians were, along with the hedge funds, whispering in reporters’ ears. They were saying that Provenge doesn’t work.
But there were excellent reasons to doubt the words of the researchers who were critical of Provenge. And, as we will see, the most prominent of them were preparing (with the possible connivance of a criminal “philanthropist” named Michael Milken and seven “colorful” hedge fund managers) to cash in on one of the stranger occurrences in the FDA’s 80 years of existence.
* * * * * * * *
To be continued….Click here for Chapter 6
If this article concerns you, and you wish to help, then:
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2) go here for additional suggestions: “So You Say You Want a Revolution?“
Thanks Mr. Mitchell (& Dr. Byrne). You & the DeepCapture team have done a great service to our country. I expect DeepCapture to hold an esteemed place in history due to your efforts to unravel these shenanigans.
Lets clean house & let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully the financial system, the housing market, what’s left of the manufacturing industry in the USA, our way of life, the USA… can survive the fallout this may bring.
Exaggerations and mis-truths. Keep up the nonsense.
Wow slim,
I hope that bubble you live in is lined with $$$… I didn’t find anything in this article misleading, exaggerated, or untruthful…
Mitchell, are you jealous of Cramer? Cramer has done more to expose the problems with the stock market, naked selling and SEC than you and Byrne together.
Your write: “Cramer famously vandalized his subpoena on live television”
“_Vandalized_”?! Was that a unique historical document, a piece of art? Your choice of words is dictated by either blind hate or intentional attempt to discredit by association with “bad” words. KGB interrogators were thought how to do this, how to replace normal words with ominously sounding ones. But you have apparently learned this skill on your own?
akcje, all those incredible facts, and the only thing you can dispute is Mark Mitchell’s use of the word “vandalize”? It’s clear you’re upset over much more than proper vocabulary, and we know which corner you’re coming from. Too bad. Speaking of “grammar”, your buddies are going to get a “sentence” like Madoff.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if one of the promising drugs your buddies crushed out of existence were one that would have let your buddies live long enough to enjoy some of life after they get out of prison?
akcje,
If Mr. Mitchell would’ve said “Cramer pissed on the subpoena”….you would’ve retorted “Cramer did not unrinate on the subpoena!!” Of course, you would have been right in that case…kinda. “Vandalized” was a pretty good choice of words.
-
kelatious > “Vandalized” was a pretty good choice of words.
We disagree. “Vandalize” has a very specific and pejorative meaning. It did not apply at all. I don’t like the attempt to paint somebody guilty while using dishonest tactics himself.
I don’t think I’ll convince you, but I’ve seen this kind of word-twisting tactics used by professional interrogators. I could be more sensitive perhaps to this. But I can see how most of the people absorb and are subconsciously influenced by this kind of language misuse.
Um… Cramer wrote “Bull” on a federal document and then ridiculed it. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as a vandalization.
AK,(alta kaker)
>>KGB interrogators were thought how to do this, how to replace normal words with ominously sounding ones.<<
Who "thought" how to "right" ? Your message is as confused as is your wrighting.
_
Yes, should have been “taught”.
AMMASS, this is a wrong place for you!
After all it was you and a few others on the IV DnDn board who tried to organize an illegal stock manipulation. While SEC should not bother, you are just like some of those that Deep Capture is trying to expose.
Jeez…
Do all the flashing lights and noise makers this clown Jim Cramer has on his TV show make you giggle? Cramer hasn’t exposed ANYTHING… well besides himself and other hedge fund managers. I suggest you watch the video that Mitchell quotes in the first paragraph where he EXPOSES that what he does and suggests to others is “blatantly illegal”. But is it illegal if you don’t get caught?… Ask Madoff.
To say that he has done anything to benefit anyone besides himself is hilarious…. I just hope you keep those blinders you have on, It’s going to be a long decade for the fools like you who buy into Cramer.
Let me ask you a question… how much money have you lost because of what Cramer has told you to buy or sell… excuse me ” SELL, SELL, SELL”. I bet it’s nothing because if you actually invested you would know how ridiculous this man and his financial advise is.
AK14 is that the best you can come back at this story with? You must be a “b” level basher. Please send in the “A” team because its about to get even hotter in here!!Cheers!LOL
akcje
Here you are again, and instead of marveling that Pequot, the current target of an SEC investigation and clearly not just linked, but seminal, in Cramer’s career, was also on the short side of the DNDN trade…you instead try to position scrawling “Bull” across a legal subpoena and throwing it on the floor derisively as something other than what it was.
Why is that? Why are you spending your no doubt valuable time trying to paint black as white, or at least light gray?
Cramer started his famous “crusade” once he was exposed via this site. Before that, never a peep out of him, and in fact he was often remarkably vocal on short plays of the rocker/pequot/sac gang. Remarkably supportive of their positions, that is.
Most people agree that legal subpoenas are important documents, and certainly scrawling “bull” across one on national TV and then hurling it at the floor constitutes an act of disdain and disrespect. Perhaps you don’t see it that way.
At least Mitchell spells his words correctly, which your short missive fails to do, at least to this native English speaker.
akcje,
You tool, you wouldn’t know investigative journalism if it bit you in the ass. Mitchell is uncovering what far more than Cramer has even tried to mention on his show. Why hasn’t Cramer testitified before Congress on how HF’s really work? I find it *very* interesting who invested in TheStreet.com and how much. Our worthless SEC hasn’t done 1/10th of what Mitchell has done to uncover this garbage/poison in our financial markets.
Next time you want to try and protect someone, at least have a foundation based in reality.
sean > You must be a “b” level basher. Please send in the “A” team
Sorry, but the poor poor writing style and no substance in these articles don’t warranty the use of the “A team”
BTW, when will Mitchell expend this expose to connect Cramer with the 9/11? !!
Some of the most feverish supporters of Deep Capture on the Dendreon bb are also of a firm believe that 9/11 was organized by our own government. And since it was proven! that Cramer has friends in NY he must have been somehow connected too. Using Mitchell’s logic….
belief
Are you also a good driver? Definitely “B” team, definitely.
Back on topic please AK. What was factually incorrect in the article please?? ANYTHING??? Just something to add to the discourse that won’t make you look so ignorant to the rest of the readers here. Thanks in advance!!
Tiny Tim > ..an act of disdain and disrespect
Correct. This is exactly what Cramer presumably intended. No “vandalism” was involved. It is a minor point of course, but shows how Mitchell tries to build his case not by concrete facts but by associations with other people or just negative words.
I’m no fan of Cramer, and often had pointed out that he is wrong more than right. And way, way too loud. But he is no evil incarnate. He recently made another mistake, saying that FDA has approved Provenge. Does it mean he is now an illegal pumper of Dendreon stock?
Tiny Tim > At least Mitchell spells his words correctly, which your short missive fails to do, at least to this native English speaker.
I’ll take your native word for it
Curt > Our worthless SEC…
SEC is an abomination. A perfect example how badly screwed up and poorly run a government organization ca be. No argument here at all.
akcje,
You wrote, “He recently made another mistake, saying that FDA has approved Provenge. Does it mean he is now an illegal pumper of Dendreon stock?”
Do you think it’s strange how often Cramer is “mistaken” regarding Dendreon facts? I think what you are refering to is a couple of weeks ago (last week?) when Cramer said something like….”Dendreon? Oh, they just got good news from the FDA…..I think it’s too high right now…you do what you want to do.”
That’s pumping? Saying the stock price is too high is pumping? He told his viewers “DNDN got good news(alluding to approval)…it’s too high.”
No, AK, he didn’t pump, instead he:
1. Said “good news” was already priced into the stock aka “no pps pop left for real FDA approval.”
2. This caused at least some investors to quit looking into buying Dendreon shares.
3. The price per share was about $25 at the time, so he alludes that even with FDA approval, he thinks it’s only worth $25
4. What Jim does constantly with Dendreon is FOMENT, just as he describes in the video mentioned in Mr. Mitchell’s excellent article.
kelatious > Said “good news” was already priced into the stock aka “no pps pop left for real FDA approval.”
Good point. But still pretty neutral and objective sounding … if not the error on claiming approval. Then again, mine own guess on DnDn pps is that it can still as easily drop $5 as to go up $5 before the FDA decision.
My best guess on Cramer is, that he was honestly confused and simply got it wrong. It seemed to me that Cramer was irrationally pissed off at Dendreon ever since he made a real bad prediction before the Panel.
Now, if it turns out that he does have some good friends shorting DnDn, I’ll be neither surprised nor shocked. But this deep capture suspicions and accusations can be made against anybody in this business. And with a good chance that many would turn out right, since this business is permeated with COIs, smoke and mirrors.
But I still don’t like when people throw accusations at everybody and hoping something may stick. Even if they do it with good intentions, which I don’t doubt Mitchell has. And using in the process worthless guesses of stock positions and funny ideas on how stock market works is not helping credibility.
When Cramer talked about fomenting and naked shorting he at least painted approximate picture of what happens. When Mitchell makes his wild guesses based on put or call positions after the Provenge panel, he is just pretending to know or confused.
akcje,
In regard to you’re first post… you’re missing the point. Perhaps Mark does possess the “blind hatred” toward Cramer as you suggest… So what. What’s your point. Have you read a few of the damning articles provided on DeepCapture? Cramer’s dirty.
You have provided no argument to convince anyone that Cramer is anything other than the criminal he is, yet you seem compelled (perhaps monetarily so) to try to defend him. All I got out of your post was that you believe Mark was rude in how he pointed out that Jim Cramer is a liar and a thief. Remember Cramer outed himself as a fraudster & then later recanted, claiming that his video confession was just hypothetical (once the dumbass realized what he’d done). If there was anyone enforcing the rules, the prick would already be facing securities fraud charges. You probably ARE Jim Cramer. If not, then perhaps you’re one of the message board bashers on the Cramer/CNBC/TheStreet.com ass-clown payroll doing your best at damage control on his behalf.
Oh almost forgot… you made another grammar error. I believe you intended to say “…the articles don’t warrant the…”
Nice attempt at diverting the discussion to 9/11???, but you don’t get to redirect the conversation in a direction you are more comfortable with. Cramer has enough documented / discoverable skeletons in the closet that it is pointless to cloud the issue with unsubstantiated tales intended to cloud the issue. Jim Cramer is a stone cold criminal. His days walking around as a free man are numbered. Perhaps even walking… I bet there’s a very real chance Cramer could end up getting ‘wacked’ before he gets the opportunity to testify against alot of rich & powerful Mobsters that Mark has shown he has ties to, & that have been implicated by DeepCapture in the greatest financial fraud in history.
Have a nice day !
Little jiminy cramer, the bald headed, bouncing, baboon, is worthy of defense. Think of all the wild laughing fits, we have had while the tiny idiot screams for foolish to sheep to fall into the trap being set for them, by none other than his fellow felons. Life is strange, the most absurd of the clowns engages the greatest support from the clogging basher. If only there were a pattern. Take note of the intellectual bankruptcy of the opponents of honesty. That provides the obvious means to hastening their imminent demise. Hide bound adherence to the game plan, displays a total lack of any ability to respond effectively to any unexpected means of attack. I believe a direct demand placed towards the department of justice, by ANY congressperson, that THEY take these rico engaged scum to task could be their undoing. Hint, hint, wink, wink
Nony and they thought I was bad. Outstanding ..terse and to the point!!
Search engine ranking update for this article with the search phrase “Michael Milken”:
June 29th
Google: 8 – dropped 4 spot
Yahoo: 84 – dropped 2 spot
Bing: 7 – jumped 3 spot
June 25rd
Google: 4 & 6 – chapter 3 and chapter 1 respectively
Yahoo: 82 – dropped 4 spot
Bing: 10 – no change
June 24th
Google: 13 – jumped one spot
Yahoo: 78 – no change
Bing: 10 – jumped from 25
If only there were a pattern…
This is making my blood boil. This is not over until every last one of these crooks is behind bars. Then, throw away the keys.
Isn’t this Byrne guy the same Byrne CEO of OSTK?
That dude is just bitter because the shorts drove his company into the crapper, but they did so only because it was so poorly run and overvalued.
It was like 2 years ago. The price went from 37ish to 10 in a couple of months. I guess according to him, they must still be on the attack because the share price is still only 12 bucks.
If the decline were solely the cause of naked shorts, don’t you think the price would have recovered by now?
The truth usually lies somewhere in between, OSTK got shorted (naked and not) into the dirt because it was justified.
I’m just askin’
No, son, you are not “just askin’”. You are trying to once-again steer the discussion off the present topic which, to remind you, are the sordid dealings that put DNDN in cross-hairs of dirty hedge funds and their helpers, in this case, Jim Cramer.
Had you bothered to read the “ABOUT” section of this website you would have seen that yes this “this Byrne guy” is the one-and-only CEO of OSTK. This is clearly stated in the ABOUT section. No big secret and conspiracy there.
Back to OSTK: the company has been greatly naked-shorted. (Most likely legally shorted as well). Which part of the “illegal naked-shorting” do you not get? Or, do you choose not to get it?
Laws must be FINALLY enforced. And, then, let each company swim or sink on its own merit. Let it succeed because its products and services are in demand and produce profit, and because of good management, R & D, etc. Conversely, if the company is no good, let it go bankrupt. But, I do not want this game illegally tipped toward bankruptcy just so that some hedge fund guys can pilfer more ill-gotten gains.
I am not nor have I ever been an OSTK shareholder. But, this is not about OSTK. This is, as “this Byrne guy” constantly points out, about the health of our financial markets and people who try to rig them for their own personal financial benefit. As a participant in financial markers I have vested interest that all who participate follow the same rules on a level-playing field. Those who do not, should soon follow different rules behind bars. That is what this is all about.
Since you were “just askin’”, here is the reply.
You blithering idiot.
Wold, you are SO correct. The poster JA was very much aware at the time of his post that Patrick Byrne is CEO of Overstock.com.
All Mark’s very damning reporting of facts on the intricate network of miscreants and their modus operandi, and this dolt is just trying to post any diverting negativity he can manage to compile on Overstock and not the Deep Capture reporting itself. Speaking of piles, I know one him and his buddies are probably in right now, LOL!
akcje,
I don’t know if you are a paid basher or not. However, you have a disdain for these articles but you are prompt to disparage the article once it is released. It is clear that you are monitoring deepcapture.com and this message board with the intensity of an eagle’s eye. After all money talks and if you are pay to do what you do I don’t blame you but then I say you are not earning it. I am pretty sure many on this board can see through you. You are suppose to offer a neutral tone and gain some trust before you attack. We all rationalize and we all have our own reason to believe or disbelieve what Mark Mitchell wrote.
History says not too many men make a fortune on Wall Street the ethical way. If you look back in the past 30 years on Wall Street you will notice their weren’t too many honest ‘rich’ people. As a Mafia Boss won’t reach the top by being a boyscout. Their public facade make tell a different story but deep under they are all a disease to society. Everyone has a story to tell. And every family has story behind it.
Hopefully, your job on this board helps put food on the table for you and your family.
Note: at least you earned a pay since I responded to your post!
These “paid bashers” are modern day Yeti’s.
Oft spoken of, but never materialize. Somebody please deliver to me one of these mysterious creatures who can certifiably confirm he was paid to “bash” and I will lick your feet.
So if I am here to “bash” this article, who might be one to pay for such a service? Any ideas?
I wish it were a legitimate profession. If I could get a mere 2 bucks for every idiot post such as your’s I bashed, I’d be wealthier’n Madoff in his pre-arrest days.
Anyone denying the existence of financial message board posters paid for posting negativity is totally ignorant or criminal. True, the past is shamefully devoid of successful prosecutions of such criminal bashers, but enforcement has egg on their faces in that regard, and they are well aware of it.
Stay tuned. The criminal prosecutions of paid message board bashers are coming soon IMO. There’s absolutely no excuse for enforcement to believe that there are “paid pumpers” but not “paid bashers”. They know there’s a blatant inequality of justice if they don’t soon show they are prosecuting both sides of manipulation (upward and downward) as no one in their right mind would think the criminality is one-sided here.
Thank you for trying to stop these crooks. It really says a lot about CNBC for keeping Cramer on the air. I figured out you couldn’t trust him several years ago. This just confirms my thoughts.
Thanks for helping shed the light on these cockroaches! I have 3 family members with prostate cancer and I want this treatment to be available to them as well as to the other thousands of men with PC. To have these criminals try to destroy a company making a product to help prolong the lives of men without effecting their quality of life is pathetic.
Keep up the great work guys!
Cramer and Greenberg had a party on CNBC bashing OSTK and Patrick Byrne.
Patrick has made a number of things VERY clear from the beginning.
1. He is not against legal short selling. Locate, borrow and deliver.
2. This is not about OSTK’s shares being sold short. This is about manipulation and the creation of counterfeit shares that are designed to overwhelm legal and lawful demand with illegal and unlawful supply – in other words, make the price go down using means that are unlawful.
3. This is not about Overstock. This is about Patrick’s commitment to seeing integrity in the American market being restored by holding to strict accountability ALL of the captured regulators, ALL of the captured journalists, and ALL of the manipulators.
Bear and Lehman came down because they were mismanaged, BUT the fall was accelerated by ILLEGAL means. Hold the management accountable for being over leveraged, but also HOLD accountable the people who poured gasoline on a burning house, instead of a water hose.
Well done, Mark, I cannot wait to read the next chapter
Again, we have the swarm of off-topic posters attempting to clog up this dialog with anything, ANYTHING, but a frank discussion of the facts Mitchell has dug up. This is the classic technique that Wall Street always uses. When the average guy figures out how he’s being screwed and by whom, just distract, dissemble, deny, confabulate.
I think it is rather obvious that there are some watching these articles and posting on this blog who work for those being unmasked. They uniformly avoid the actual subject matter and the shocking content of the articles, preferring to jabber about style or personalities. They clearly do so for a reason.
Mark Mitchell,
I notice from reading the news the group of hedge funds that were trapped by Porsche on the Volkswagen ’short squeeze of the century’ are part of the network that you unveil in the DNDN saga. SAC, Einhorn, etc… were caught in the squeeze. They were crying foul! I had a hunch that Volkswagen was under attack by this same group. You have to give a thumbs up for Porsche to pull this off! As the saying goes – let them taste their own medicine!
Is an investigative article on the VW short squeeze saga in the work? I bet you will unveil the same group of hedge funds trying to screw VW.
There was a site that would automatically link company URL’s to show which edits in Wikipedia were made from that company’s network. It showed the someone at Steve Cohen’s company made a wiki edit on the naked shorting site saying that funds would often use swaps to avoid technically naked shorting. This edit was deleted a few minutes later, but was still preserved in the history.
The idea is they would agree to pay the prime brokerage interest on $1 million in exchange for the prime brokerage giving them any upside in the stock they were shorting. The swap was said to be even for both sides, so it canceled out and was completely off balance sheet.
The prime brokerage received all the trade commissions and interest on the short money and effectively was renting their ability to naked short to the funds.
The $1 million is an arbitrary figure. The idea is that you pay interest on the amount of your short and the prime brokerage effectively insures that they will cover any losses if it goes up in value. (Then the prime brokerage colludes with the short fund network to make dam sure it doesn’t go up.)
do ya have that site for us to look at?
or that post?
would be cool to see.
Just did a search and came up with this.
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
thank you.
i s’pose i coulda done that too.
im kinda tired n dont has my thinkin cap on.
JA,
You wrote:
“That dude is just bitter because the shorts drove his company into the crapper, but they did so only because it was so poorly run and overvalued.”
You’re an idiot. You smarmy basher weenies always want to go back to the same lame, tired excuse in an attempt to justify your misgivings. Dr. Byrne always, without fail, makes a point to stress that this is NOT about Overstock. But you know that.
As far as the Overstock share value being at $12… two points:
1) You do remember a rather precipitous decline in stock prices over the last several months, yes? Every company’s stock price is down. Correlation does not imply causation.
2) When countless MILLIONS of counterfeit Overstock shares are floating around the electronic exchanges, it can be reasonably expected to affect the supply / demand curve, yes? OK more simply… If there APPEARS to be an over-abundance of shares (an excess supply), the price will be driven down (insufficient demand). Or do you have difficulty with that concept…
Then you wrote:
“Oft spoken of, but never materialize. Somebody please deliver to me one of these mysterious creatures who can certifiably confirm he was paid to “bash” and I will lick your feet.”
It might be tough to get someone to “certifiably confirm” their illegal behavior. Spyro might just do so, seeing as he’s already in prison for . You should read the articles linked below. If you are a reasonable person, I believe you’ll shut your cake hole. You’re making a fool of yourself.
http://www.deepcapture.com/gary-weiss-scaramouch-psychopath/
http://www.deepcapture.com/gary-weiss-his-dtcc-ties-and-lies/
http://www.deepcapture.com/fortune-magazine-stonewalls-exposure-of-bethany-mclean-perfidy/
http://www.deepcapture.com/anti-investigative-reporter-joe-nocera-and-the-newspaper-of-non-record/
http://www.deepcapture.com/spyro-contogouris-and-the-gentle-art-of-hedge-fund-persuasion/
http://www.deepcapture.com/tag/sac-capital/
Scaramouch is my new favorite word. While you do owe it to me, I don’t find your foot licking proposition particularly appealing. I’ll pass.
Then you wrote:
“So if I am here to “bash” this article, who might be one to pay for such a service? Any ideas?”
Might I suggest Gary Weiss? He’s a whore. Or Joe Nocera? Whore. Floyd Schneider, Roddy Boyd, Bethany McClean, Max Bernstein, Spyro Contogouris. Whore, whore, whore, whore, whore. We could go on…
Disclosure: I have nothing to do with Overstock, do not hold nor have I ever held any interest in Overstock in any form. I’m just someone who appreciates DeepCapture’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for cashing in ~ half the value of the holdings of the United States middle class over the past decade through organized criminal means.
UNFORTUNATE for J CRAMER is that the data bases are replete with the weight of evidence that clearly shows Jim is/was complicit. Denderon is but one of many. JDSU/GLW/JAVA/and many many others over the years. However, MANY were also complicit. The game changer that has took it from standard operating practice was that they nearly crushed the financial system as Bear Stearns was taken down and then those who implemented the tactic of ABNSS began taking down financial after financial. So what is one to do. The answer is simple. There are laws and if they are broken then lock the guilty up AND if there are those who will NOT enforce the laws then REPLACE THEM WITH THOSE WHO WILL! MILLIONS have been affected by the nefarious behavior of liars/cheats and theives. And a great nation almost taken down. We are beyond dialogue. It’s time for ACTION. Stay focussed and ignore those who attempt to distract.
If Mr Bryne spent half as much time running his company as he did chasing short, naked gremlins, maybe OSTK wouldn’t still be sitting at $12.
I’m just sayin’
JA, are you an Overstock shareholder? TIA
Just say it elsewhere.
Mark Mitchell wrote the article, not Patrick Byrne. This issue is bigger than OSTK, what do you not understand about that? That you continue to grasp at straws suggests you either have a reading comprehension problem, or are deliberately trying to distract from pertinent matters. If it is the former we can help you, if it is the latter then we have a problem.
This is getting interesting. It appears these stories are generating some intense interest in certain folks that are making them post basher crap on this site. Why would they be sticking up for Cramer and other Naked Shorters if they didn’t have a financial/personal interest in it? Why stand up for people that have repeatedly tried to destroy companies through illegal means? Is it because they want to see more corruption, or are they just corrupt themselves and are standing up for their mentors?
Interesting indeed as we watch them squirm…
Keep up the Great Work Mark, Patrick and the rest of you who are writting to Congress to get them to stop this manipulation!!!
THANK YOU
It’s obvious to me that contributors like JA who are attempting to shift the dialog to a discussion of Byrne and OSTK are doing so deliberately.
It is also pretty sophomoric, and won’t work. Byrne’s focus has nothing to do with Milken being one degree of separation from some of the largest hedge funds in the country. Fer chrissakes, if Madoff being NSS DNDN isn’t enough of a clue that something pretty bad is going on with this group, and clowns like JA and the other one prefer to focus on writing criticisms (even as they mangle simple sentences themselves) or Byrne’s focus (who isn’t writing the articles), I say let them dig their own grave. Any reader over twelve years old will figure out they are here to distract pretty quickly, and then ask the obvious question: Why are they so intent upon shifting the dialog from an organized criminal cartel bringing down a cancer cure company, to virtually anything else?
Seems to me the answer is obvious. Can’t wait for chapter 6.
_
Tiny Tim >…if Madoff being NSS DNDN isn’t enough of a clue
Tiny Tim, you are a typical reader of Deep Capture who takes some carefully crafted suspicions and turns them to facts in his confused mind.
Mitchell doesn’t know if Madoff was a naked short in DnDn. He admits it. But you TimTom apparently know it somehow…
Furthermore, Mitchell seems to confuse Madoff’s fund pyramid scheme operation with a Market Maker which was a separate company. Madoff’s fund is reported to have made no trades at all, naked or not.
When you look at the only “fact” Mitchell reports (without saying what his sources are), it is about some put positions _after_ the Dendreon panel. Why would anybody be surprised that those?! DnDn stock price was very, very high mostly because of a short squeeze. And many rational people saw approval of Provenge not very likely. So buying puts at that time was just a reasonable and safe bet without any need to look for more sinister reasons. Those more sinister actions may well have been in play too, but Mitchell didn’t add anything new to the well known story of a few doctors putting pressure on FDA to delay Provenge approval.
Tiny Tim > I think it is rather obvious that there are some watching these articles and posting on this blog who work for those being unmasked.
You think? Now, that is funny.
Shorts are the financial system’s vultures, ugly perhaps, but useful nonetheless.
Their purpose is to drive crappy companies to a level of fair valuation, thus protecting more novice investors in the process.
And like the vultures circling overhead, as long as you remain healthy and breathing, they won’t swoop in to pick your eyes out.
Macabre as it may sound, nature’s little recyclers, like shorts, perform a purpose: after all, someone should benefit from that which no longer useful, right?
I’m just sayin’
Are there some rogue players out there? Sure, but relatively few and in fact, shorts overall (naked and fully clothed) have saved investors more money than they have cost them.
The reason is simple: shorts in general are far above average in their investment acumen, because unlike longs, their exposure isn’t finite, but is limitless. Hence, they must choose their targets carefully and in the course of “adjusting” that target’s price, they fairly re-valuate them for the benefit of the peabrained investor.
It is extremely rare that a healthy and corrected priced company gets targeted and if that’s the case, who cares if a minor number of the shorts are naked? The result is the same in the end, it all comes out in the wash eventually.
I mean let’s look at OSTK: it was driven to $10 or so by the “naked short attack” if you are to believe that. And where is it today? Looks like $12 two years later, so how many investors were saved how much money in those two years from buying in at $30, at $25, at $20, or even $15? Buy driving the price quickly to the appropriate level, the shorts made some dough, and the peabrains were saved far more.
So, I don’t see the problem, looks to be a win win in my book!
I’m just sayin’
Sorry for all the typos, I’m busy shorting whilst I type.
I find it funny as I read through all the above posts that remark about the “paid bashers” coming out in “swarms” and droves and with “intense interest,” “contributorS (plural) trying to shift the dialogue” etc etc etc.
In scanning through the posts – I count ONE contrarian: ME! A “swarm” of ONE! Woooooooooooo!!!!!
What a bunch of like-minded, boogeyman-chasin’ pantywaists!
JA..if you or others break the law by illegally naked shorting then you deserve the consequences. Millions have been harmed by the use of that tactic and MILLIONS will not shed a tear for you and your ilk that break the law or are complict. So keep posting, I’m sure there are those who are great at forensics monitoring this site.
More boogeyman crap! What exactly are these “forensics monitors” going to do? Assuming they can find me, what will they do to me? What have I done wrong? Tell me, moron, tell me!
Break my kneecaps for exercising free speech? Let me give you a life lesson, moron: you have nothing to fear from short traders if you do your homework, they actually help you, but you are too stupid to realize that.
However, there is NOTHING more dangerous than a group of foaming-at-the-mouth morons all whipping themselves into a frenzy of ignorance.
Free speech is OK. No one here objects to free speech. Conflation of terms, lies, and changing the subject are all covered and you freely use them. We are free to point them out.
“conflation of terms”? Whutdaheyall?!Is that some sort of crime no one told me about, or did you just throw that out there because you think it makes you sound erudite?
Lies? Show me one.
Changing the subject? There is nothing more pertinent to this topic than what I have discussed here. If you had a shred of impartiality you should WANT a contrarian view.
You see the difference between informed, intelligent people and the dogmatic foam-at-the-mouth-tell-me-what-I-want-to-hear-and-nothing-else types of which you are obviously one, is that WE appreciate dissent.
“Only through the full consideration of dissenting opinions does one achieve enlightenment.”
If you or any of these other lemmings had a shred of capability of thinking objectively you wouldn’t be so susceptible to either boogeyman conspiracies or getting screwed in the stock market by those smarter than you.
I’m just saying’
I never said anything about “conflation of terms” being a crime. You implying that I have said so is called a “straw man”, a fallacy, and is yet another attempt to change the subject, which is not a crime and falls within the framework of free speech, as does my ability to point all of that out. “Conflation of terms” is a lie. By replacing one term (naked short) with another (short) you create a lie. This does also fall within free speech, and you are free to create these lies, just as I am free to point them out.
Somehow, I am supposed to miss the conflation of “changing the subject” and “contrarian view” construction you wrote. You don’t really deny changing the subject, you only appear to respond to it with a claim to pertinency and contrarianism, leaving yourself firmly within free speech territory as anyone is free to conflate one term with another as often as they like, as free as I am to point out the fallacy created when you do so.
“Break my kneecaps for exercising free speech? Let me give you a life lesson, moron: you have nothing to fear from short traders if you do your homework, they actually help you, but you are too stupid to realize that.”
Regular, legal short selling is not at issue here. Illegal naked short selling is. What don’t you understand about this?
If Picower is not one of these 10 then the system needs to be shut down for good!!!
Madoff Probe: 10 Others To Be Charged: AP Source
LARRY NEUMEISTER AND TOM HAYS | June 30, 2009 09:43 AM EST |
NEW YORK — Authorities are pursuing charges against 10 more people in the Bernard Madoff financial scandal after the mastermind of one of the biggest financial frauds in history was sentenced to spend the rest of his days behind bars, The Associated Press has learned.
A person familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity because the probe is ongoing, wouldn’t detail what the potential charges would be or say whether the 10 people include Madoff’s family or former employees. So far, only Madoff and an accountant accused of failing to make basic auditing checks have been criminally charged in the multibillion-dollar hoax.
JA said:
“Oft spoken of, but never materialize. Somebody please deliver to
me one of these mysterious creatures who can certifiably confirm
he was paid to “bash” and I will lick your feet.”
Check this out: http://www.deepcapture.com/the-enigma/
JA said:
“So if I am here to “bash” this article, who might be one to pay
for such a service? Any ideas?”
Here’s a few:
Spyro Contogouris (currently in prison for stock fraud), Gary Weiss, Bethany McClean, Herb Goldberg, Joe Nocera, Floyd Schneider, … All the type of whore you’re looking for.
Suck it!
I see no Yeti in that mess, just the fabricated foot castings of one.
Demanding a confession from an individual engaged in message board bashing as the only acceptable confirmation is unreasonable. A court of law does not require an admission of guilt from a defendant in order to convict him. It requires evidence. What part don’t you understand?
JA: Message Board Troll
You obviously are out to marginalize Mark Mitchell’s work. Too bad nobody’s buying your load of BS… with the exception of a couple of other persistent trolls (that might just be you as well).
I agree it’s important to remain critical, but you are on the wrong side to be making that argument. You’re arguing to maintain a broken system that has been perverted into a machine designed to rape shareholder value.
The argument is NOT that short selling is bad, or that Dr. Byrne is against short selling, nor is it about Overstock. Though these are lies you continue to spew forth.
The argument is that naked short selling is fraud, because it distorts the true valuation of a company’s stock price by biasing the normal supply/demand curve. Of course you understand this, but you don’t seem to be interested in correcting this perversion of the rules. Rather you seem bent on doing your best to minimalize the disastrous effect this has had on the masses, while enriching a few scaramouches. (Scaramouch is my new favorite word-Thanks JA)
As far as Overstock share price at $12… two points.
1) You do recall a precipitous drop in the stock markets recently, yes? Every company’s stock price is down. Idiot.
2) Once Overstock had been naked shorted for a few months, there are several MILLION counterfeit undelivered shares floating around the electronic exchanges. This fact will continue to have a negative effect on the stock valuation due to the APPEARANCE that those are real shares and not share IOUs.
Dumbed down for you… More shares = greater supply, yes? Since the company didn’t actually increase in value just because a few misfits created the appearance of more (counterfeit) shares for sale in the market, the stock price will be negatively affected. This is due to the simple fact that a greater supply would require increased demand to maintain the same share price. Consider that a share of stock is a very small piece of the pie. When you have more pieces of the same pie, you get a smaller piece…
Why is it such an unreasonable request that those who would sell stock actually deliver what they have sold???
Intellectually deficient, aren’t the cloggers…..
JA. the fact you have to resort to the use of the word MORON allows many to comprehend who the moron is. As another stated the ISSUE is NOT about legal short selling but the illegal use of NSS. And once again if you and your ilk are complicit or engaging in breaking the law then if you are big enough you will face the consequences you deserve. So run along basher. The timeframe for those who implement the tactic of ABNSS is coming to an end.
You know what happens to companies that are over valued? Management issues overvalued shares to raise money or to buy under valued companies. Think AOL. They used their overvalued shares to buy Time Warner.
And do you know who benefits? The shareholders of that over valued company.
So, please explain what benefit there is to those shareholders for you to take money from buyers, refuse to deliver anything and cripple the share price with the fake supply? You’re just a parasite, sucking blood from a company that could have been an AOL to put money into your own bank account.
And who decides what overvalued is? The long investors who buy and sell to place their votes? Or you, who use other people’s investments in your hedge fund and leverage from the bank to drive the price down? And what if you’re wrong? We’re supposed to come bail your bank and insurance company out with tax payer money?
Na, you drip of self interest and justification. You naked short so you can get rich and you don’t care who is hurt in the process no matter how much you tell yourself you are doing a great public service.
What does AOL and the purchase of Time Warner have to do with the subject at hand, specifically, naked short selling stock? Conflating one with the other serves only too create a lie. Please try harder, you are boring me.
Note that this series of articles is about a criminal, whose contacts are engaging in criminal behavior themselves (stock manipulation as a group, which would appear to be RICO), whilst being but-buddies with the mob, and targeting one company (as an example) whose product would save or extend lives.
It isn’t about any of the things the basher/clogger crowd have spend thousands of words now trying to change the subject to.
What part of illegal don’t you understand?
Stock manipulation, perverting the system and robbing retail investors as well as other participants alike, in a colluding scheme, is illegal for obvious reasons.
Allowing dozens of posts from the market equivalent of the Holocaust denier crowd, whose only apparent purpose is to divert attention from the topic, isn’t particularly productive, nor is responding to their idiocy, IMO.
You ALL have to watch and listen carefully. They are not even trying to hide this crap anymore!!
CNBC – Larry Levin Tells Truth – Gov’t Manipulating The Market
It starts around the 2:20 mark.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/cnbc-this-market-continues-to-be.html
I have pointed that out here and elsewhere to no avail. I think Milken and his cohort are working for someone much bigger, but no one seems interested in pursuing that line of inquiry.
They have no fear of the Law or the “Captured” regulators!!
Liz Moyer: “Short-Sellers Set For Flame Forum”
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/27/einhorn-chanos-short-business-wall-street-banks.html?partner=investing_newsletter
Wall Street
Short-Sellers Set For Flame Forum
Liz Moyer, 05.27.09, 1:40 PM ET
One year ago, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital took to the stage at an annual investor conference in New York and skewered Lehman Brothers, claiming its feckless risk taking had put the financial system in peril.
His talk ended with a call to regulators to guide Lehman “toward a recapitalization and recognition of its losses–hopefully before federal taxpayer assistance is required.”
The speech was, of course, a sensation. And Einhorn, who was public about taking a short position in Lehman’s stock (hoping it would decline in value), proved prescient. Its pronouncements about its viability notwithstanding, Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy just four months later.
That same conference, the Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference, convenes Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan, and Einhorn is scheduled to speak again. He will present his best investment idea for this year, as will fellow short-seller James Chanos of Kynikos Associates and activist William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital, among others.
It is a big event in the hedge fund world–investors pay $3,000 a seat to hear ideas from big-name money managers and at the same time raise funds to treat children with cancer and other deadly diseases.
The contents of the speeches are kept secret, and media outlets are asked to embargo stories on what was presented until noon the following day. This year, an anonymous donor bought 50 seats for attendees who otherwise couldn’t afford it because of unemployment.
Banks could well be the short-sellers’ target again, even though most bank stocks have been badly beaten down since early 2008. Chanos is already on record saying banks knowingly booked inflated earnings when selling financial products that led to the financial system’s downfall and government bailout.
Earlier this month at a conference at New York University, Chanos called it “one of the greatest heists of all time.”
Bank stocks rallied in March and April after reaching a low point in February on concerns that a broader government bailout might be needed to save the likes of Citigroup and Bank of America. But even regulators are saying the banking system isn’t out of the woods yet.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Wednesday the number of banks on its “problem” list rose to 305 in the first quarter from 252 at the end of 2008; the 21 bank failures in the period were the most in one quarter since the end of 1992, and that count doesn’t include last week’s failure of $13 billion asset BankUnited of Coral Gables, Fla., the biggest collapse so far this year.
Troubled loans are accumulating, and losses continue to rise as income falls. The industry’s ratio of reserves to loans rose to an all-time high of 2.5%, surpassing the previous high set in 1992 in the midst of the last real-estate lending crisis. But the increase in reserves isn’t keeping pace with the deterioration in loan books.
The ratio of reserves to non-current loans fell to 66% from 75%, the lowest level since 1992. “We are now in the cleanup phase for the banking industry,” says FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. “It will take some more time.”
That should give short-sellers more than enough ammunition.
From 1992. Is selling junk bonds backed by nothing much different than selling toxic debt or phantom shares?
“Stein believes that Milken, whom he compares to mobster Meyer Lansky, was at the heart of a broad conspiracy that bilked investors, savings and loan depositors, insurance policyholders, and taxpayers out of tens of billions of dollars.”
http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1992/b32975.arc.htm
A near word perfect denial recitation from the, then current, detractor of Mr. Stein is amusing. If only there was a pattern.
LETS GIVE PATRICK AND MARK AND JUDD AND DEEPCPATURE A VOTE,
[WIKILEAKS] The Most Wanted Leaks of 2009. Nominations open
From: wl-press-owner@lists.riseup.net on behalf of Wikileaks Press Office (press-office@wikileaks.org)
Sent: Wed 7/01/09 7:18 AM
To: wl-press@lists.riseup.net; wl-news@lists.riseup.net
Cc: Julian Assange. (julian@wikileaks.org)
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WikiLeaks requests global nominations for the “Most Wanted Leaksof 2009″-the concealed documents or recordings most sought afterby a country’s journalists, activists, historians, lawyers,police, or human rights investigators. Prizes will be award to the winner for each country. Nominations can be anonymous, or if necessary, confidential. WikiLeaks will seek to obtain the leading candidates through thelegal system, and its network of journalists, intelligencesources, volunteers and readers. If you email us(wl-editor@sunshinepress.org) we will alert you when the recordhas been obtained. Think of your nomination as an global Freedomof Information Act request with no exemptions. Winners for each country will receive a cash prize upto 1000 EUR,depending on how many countries submit. Be sure to ask your “offline” contacts for their nomination also;we seek nominations that reflect every government, political group,industry and oligarch. Documents or other materials added nominated must: * Be likely to have political, diplomatic, ethical or historical impact.* Be known to exist or have existed.* Be plausibly obtainable to a well motivated insider, outsider orintelligence agent. For instance the entire collection of documentsheld by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security is not plausiblyobtainable, but a specific document or collection of documents may be.* Be described in enough detail so that a court, dissident insider orvisiting outsider not already familiar with the material or itssubject matter may be able to quickly locate it, and will be motivatedto do so.* Should, where possible, list all organizations, locations andcomputer systems suspected of holding the material or havinginformation leading to it. If public nomination would cause the document to further concealed, thenomination may be made priately. See the nominations so far (order does not reflect the view of WikiLeaks): https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Draft:The_Most_Wanted_Leaks_of_2009
Mark, thanks for reminding everyone of this fact:
“And when FDA advisory panels recommended approval for drugs destined for dying patients, the FDA had accepted its panels’ recommendations 100% of the time.”
So how would a hedge fund ‘hedge’ against that risk without knowing the rules of the game would be changed? How could any ’serious’ hedge fund seriously bet millions against 100% odds that you are wrong…unless you had a 110% chance of being right?
Keep it coming Mark!
Here is a chart I made laying out the relationships in Chapter 5 of this exposé:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39874373@N03/3672745445/sizes/o/