The climate on Planet Money

I highly recommend making a habit of listening to NPR’s Planet Money podcast.

Two things:

First, I highly recommend making a habit of listening to NPR’s Planet Money podcast. I’ve been listening for nearly a year (the entire length of its existence) and find the benefits innumerable. If you’re not familiar with podcasting, it’s basically an easy way to have audio content automatically downloaded to your computer or mp3 player as it’s released. That means you don’t need to go looking for it. It’s just there, waiting for you to consume at your convenience.

Planet Money publishes a new episode every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening. The typical 20 minute edition focuses on some aspect of economics, more often than not related to the present financial crisis, and usually incorporating an interview with somebody fascinating.

Which brings me to thing #2…

The most recent episode of Planet Money includes an interview with Sam Antar, a convicted stock manipulator and known associate of now-defunct short selling hedge fund Copper River Partners (née Rocker Partners) and Gradient Analytics (née Camelback Research). In total fairness, Sam’s interview, which focuses on the crime he enabled as CFO of Crazy Eddie) is very interesting, although I’d say that’s more a reflection on the skill of the interviewers than on Sam himself.

At the conclusion of the interview, hosts Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum wonder aloud whether Sam Antar is to be trusted.

In response, I added a comment to the segment’s accompanying blog portion, pointing out that in my opinion, Sam Antar remains in the stock manipulation business as evidenced by his involvement in — and financing of — smear attacks on public companies (which go beyond claims of accounting fraud to include accusations of anti-Semitism, marital infidelity, substance abuse, and worse) led by short sellers hoping to profit from an expected drop in the target companies’ share price. In support of my claim, I included this link, which offers a clear example of just such an attack against a company called USANA: http://antisocialmedia.net/when-youre-right-youre-right/

Well, typical of how Sam and his buddy Gary Weiss operate, they reported my comment as “inappropriate” and managed to get it removed (twice).

If you agree that the world could benefit from additional context when deciding whether to trust Sam Antar, you might consider making that clear by adding your own comment here.

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18 comments
  1. Keep the heat on those vermin.
    Perhaps they’ll shrivel up and blow away at some point.
    God knows the SEC will never do anything.

  2. Planet Money (and the extended financial coverage in several _This American Life_ episodes) is pretty solid.

    In fact, it was one of the Planet Money related web pages that brought me here.

  3. Planet Money and This American Life, in fact all of NPR, are a national treasure. I hope we all give them the support they need to remain an independent voice.

  4. I just heard on CNN (Thursday Aug 20 2009), that Michael Milken will be on Larry King Live on Friday August 21 st., to talk about prostate cancer. Not sure if they will have people calling in.

  5. Hey everybody, come on over and burn off some of that frustration blowing away zombie bankers:

    http://www.econocataclysm.com/day-traders-of-the-dead-video-game/

    Watch out for the Mega-CEO’s, they take lots of hits to kill but they drop lots of stuff too. If you can get a rocket launcher then keep it, it’s good for crowd control at the zombie banks when they really start swarming you. (Just pretend they’re all clones of Gary Weiss lol!) Enjoy!

  6. Judd, did you get a screenshot of the excised comments? I posted there and offered my opinion as to Sam’s credibility. Wonder if it will stand?

    Just in case, I will post it here.
    “Is Sam reformed? I’ve followed his behavior over the naked shorting issue. He has made a career of pointing out the accounting fraud while criticizing anyone who points to the naked shorting issue. When one part of a business is no longer viable, it makes sense to put the effort into protecting one that is viable. As long as the SEC and FBI are underfunded, Wall Street influence on Capital Hill is running the show, and there is little or no regulation, we will continue to have market manipulation. What is the incentive for people to be honest when the crooks get a handslap and these same crooks are given a forum. Lately Michael Milken has had a lot of time promoting himself and MSM treats him like a hero. Everything is upside down. Cramer got caught tutoring people how to manipulate stocks. You’ve given Antar a forum. Some may think Sam is colorful and harmless now because he got caught in one type of fraud and he goes about lecturing on it. The fraud that precipitated the current financial mess came from selling things with inflated values and overleveraging, whether it was fraudulent MBS, multiple CDS tied to these or stock that was manufactured in the market. Find people of higher standards to interview.”

    Look at the similarities of what has happened over the years. Crazy Eddie bunch were not happy with the money that they had, used the money they had to pump and dump their stock. Milken did pump and dump with junk bonds and accounting fraud at the S&L. Both Sam and Milken got off with small fines and minimal social consequences when they harmed people. The most distressing part of this is that our leaders.. Presidential Candidate McCain actually thought he was qualified for leading this country when he was involved with Keating and he was given a pass as if he had never had poor judgment or worse. McCain is still in a position to vote on our future, and continued to do favors for big contributors to deregulate. Bizarro World. He’s been given a pass because he chose to go to war, got tortured and leveraged his name and wounds using support from criminals and others to attain a position of power. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzDEbVFcg8

    We have to realize that as long as campaign contributions keep people in office, the officeholders will do favors for the big guys and ignore the little guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYas4KUYIU0&NR=1&feature=fvwp McCain expresses his greed in his book. Accepting invitations from Keating was simple greed. His desire to hobnob with Keating because of Keating’s position and wealth was ego-driven greed.

    McCain is the epitomy of what is wrong with this country. The country is willing to accept mediocrity and forgets and forgives all to easily.

    While people are losing jobs and being foreclosed on, Obama is flying AF One on vacation… How many homes would that little trip have paid for? Where is the leadership? Why isn’t this guy tightening his own spending?

  7. Save this article to your hard drive to read later. Whether real or written by someone that put 2 and 2 together, it is right.

    http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/sw4qw/index.shtml

    The financial system is like an electrical circuit and you can shock test it to create a perfect mathematical model of populations.

    This isn’t off topic!

    If you rethink naked shorting as fractionally backed share ownership, then it isn’t too much different than the banking system that only fractionally backs shareholder deposits. That was illegal at one time, but THEY got away with it and changed the rules.

    Now the SEC had tried to change the rules from 1933 to say naked shorting is okay as it helps liquidity and who gives a crap about constitutional property rights.

    The bankster families that own the Fed and banks you just bailed out with your taxes don’t go to jail, because they use their ability to print money to buy and control the media and buy and control who gets elected. That’s why no one ever gets arrested for naked shorting shares or banking deposits or the State of California bonds. It’s the mechanism that gives the people that run things their power over lowly people like Bill Gates that work for a living.

    Some of you will get this and some of you won’t, but please don’t censor it. I first read it in William Cooper’s book, before the banking families assassinated him in 2001 just after he started tying 911 to banking.

    http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/sw4qw/index.shtml

    The signed book I bought for $15 is worth $2000 now as a collector’s item as the publishers, owned by the banking families, don’t want to reprint it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_William_Cooper

    $2000 at Amazon

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0929385225/ref=dp_olp_collectible?ie=UTF8&condition=collectible

    People going to work is real. If people are at Ford making cars, the economy has more stuff for us all to share and at the end of the day, more of us will have cars. If they are laid off, there is less stuff for us to share and someone doesn’t get a car. It’s not rocket science. We’re all richer when more people are working and we can barter to all work, so why does money cause unemployment cycles? Something has to be orchestrated for us to stop working and lower wealth for the ones that are.

    The financial system is fake. It’s math. Money is unlimited, but because it is created as debt, it is unsustainable mathematically because only the principle is ever created and the system is always short the interest. Busts are required mathematically as someone has to not get a car to make up for the people sitting on their ass wathcing Oprah, getting interest or the system goes exponential aka like the Weimar Republic hyperinflation.

    It’s not about wealth. It’s about power.

    It’s that unsustainability that gives them power over us, because like a mirage in the desert, the average person is mathematiclaly forced to be like a rat in a maze, chasing cheese that’s just out of their reach. The mortgage and credit card payments are always just short and we can never get out of that debt hole until we retire and pass the batons to our kids who live their live in indentured servitude.

    I knew something was up when Mastercard camped out at my university to give me a free clock radio if I would sign up for their $300 limit credit card.

    Mortgage is French for a death contract. Do you know what indentured servitude is? How is working to pay off your home for 25 years not slavery? We all have to live somewhere.

    Compare that to your great grandparents, who with no electricity were off the grid and self sufficient. No income tax. No sales tax. And you didn’t buy anything until the cash was available up front.

    That’s why they were free and you aren’t.

    If you can understand that money is like electricity, with analogs to voltage, impedance, resistance, current, etc., you can understand why we need wars to sustain the privately owned monetary system and why the population needs to be kept in a constant state of fear where the people at the top never get arrested.

    I met a billionaire and he told me he wanted to wear a t-shirt that said “It’s tough being one of the elite” and I had to break the news to him that if he couldn’t print money out of thin air, than he wasn’t the elite and his fortune would be gone in a few generations through inheritance taxes.

    I also met a director at Rothschild’s (I still wonder why he came to see me and explained it as a coincidence he was meeting someone I knew) and told him what I believed and to my surprise, he agreed with me, then explained to me how the average person is a child and democracy is a mistake (akin to mob rule where the mob is dumb) and that a strong privately controlled hand from above is necessary to keep the economic system running.

    For three hours, he explained to me why the present system where the people at the top print money and shares, the average person doesn’t get what they own and democracy is a sham was in everyone’s best interest because of the dangers of mob rule.

    And before you go, your great grandfather knew what the Wizard of Oz was before they scrubbed that memory from the collective consciousness.

    http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=hp&q=wizard+of+oz+economic+allegory&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&

    That man behind the curtain is an inbred member of a banking family and they don’t deserve to be in charge of the SEC.

  8. Save this article to your hard drive to read later. Whether real or written by someone that put 2 and 2 together, it is right.

    http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/sw4qw/index.shtml

    The financial system is like an electrical circuit and you can shock test it to create a perfect mathematical model of populations.

    This isn’t off topic!

    If you rethink naked shorting as fractionally backed share ownership, then it isn’t too much different than the banking system that only fractionally backs shareholder deposits. That was illegal at one time, but THEY got away with it and changed the rules.

    Now the SEC had tried to change the rules from 1933 to say naked shorting is okay as it helps liquidity and who gives a crap about constitutional property rights.

    The bankster families that own the Fed and banks you just bailed out with your taxes don’t go to jail, because they use their ability to print money to buy and control the media and buy and control who gets elected. That’s why no one ever gets arrested for naked shorting shares or banking deposits or the State of California bonds. It’s the mechanism that gives the people that run things their power over lowly people like Bill Gates that work for a living.

    Some of you will get this and some of you won’t, but please don’t censor it. I first read it in William Cooper’s book, before the banking families assassinated him in 2001 just after he started tying 911 to banking.

    The signed book I bought for $15 is worth $2000 now as a collector’s item as the publishers, owned by the banking families, don’t want to reprint it.

    $2000 at Amazon

    People going to work is real. If people are at Ford making cars, the economy has more stuff for us all to share and at the end of the day, more of us will have cars. If they are laid off, there is less stuff for us to share and someone doesn’t get a car. It’s not rocket science. We’re all richer when more people are working and we can barter to all work, so why does money cause unemployment cycles? Something has to be orchestrated for us to stop working and lower wealth for the ones that are.

    The financial system is fake. It’s math. Money is unlimited, but because it is created as debt, it is unsustainable mathematically because only the principle is ever created and the system is always short the interest. Busts are required mathematically as someone has to not get a car to make up for the people sitting on their ass wathcing Oprah, getting interest or the system goes exponential aka like the Weimar Republic hyperinflation.

    It’s not about wealth. It’s about power.

    It’s that unsustainability that gives them power over us, because like a mirage in the desert, the average person is mathematiclaly forced to be like a rat in a maze, chasing cheese that’s just out of their reach. The mortgage and credit card payments are always just short and we can never get out of that debt hole until we retire and pass the batons to our kids who live their live in indentured servitude.

    I knew something was up when Mastercard camped out at my university to give me a free clock radio if I would sign up for their $300 limit credit card.

    Mortgage is French for a death contract. Do you know what indentured servitude is? How is working to pay off your home for 25 years not slavery? We all have to live somewhere.

    Compare that to your great grandparents, who with no electricity were off the grid and self sufficient. No income tax. No sales tax. And you didn’t buy anything until the cash was available up front.

    That’s why they were free and you aren’t.

    If you can understand that money is like electricity, with analogs to voltage, impedance, resistance, current, etc., you can understand why we need wars to sustain the privately owned monetary system and why the population needs to be kept in a constant state of fear where the people at the top never get arrested.

    I met a billionaire and he told me he wanted to wear a t-shirt that said “It’s tough being one of the elite” and I had to break the news to him that if he couldn’t print money out of thin air, than he wasn’t the elite and his fortune would be gone in a few generations through inheritance taxes.

    I also met a director at Rothschild’s (I still wonder why he came to see me and explained it as a coincidence he was meeting someone I knew) and told him what I believed and to my surprise, he agreed with me, then explained to me how the average person is a child and democracy is a mistake (akin to mob rule where the mob is dumb) and that a strong privately controlled hand from above is necessary to keep the economic system running.

    For three hours, he explained to me why the present system where the people at the top print money and shares, the average person doesn’t get what they own and democracy is a sham was in everyone’s best interest because of the dangers of mob rule.

    And before you go, your great grandfather knew what the Wizard of Oz was before they scrubbed that memory from the collective consciousness.

    That man behind the curtain is an inbred member of a banking family and they don’t deserve to be in charge of the SEC.

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