The Magic Madoff Show - Now You See It, Now You Don't

“I’ll make this quick,” the businessman said, with two other witnesses present. “I have a message for you from Russia. The message is, ‘We are about to kill you. We are about to kill you.’ Patrick, they are going to kill you. If you do not stop this crusade, they will kill you. Normally they’d have already hurt someone close to you as a warning, but you’re so weird, they don’t know how you’d react.”

"Evidence suggests that Bernard Madoff, the “prominent” Wall Street operator and former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, had ties to the Russian Mafia, Moscow-based oligarchs, and the Genovese organized crime family.

And, as reported by Deep Capture and Reuters, Madoff did not just orchestrate a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. He was also the principal architect of SEC rules that made it easier for “naked” short sellers to manufacture phantom stock and destroy public companies – a factor in the near total collapse of the American financial system."

Continue reading this incredible and true story by Mark Mitchell about Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com CEO, and his plight to expose the manipulation and naked short selling that is going on in the stock market, here >>http://www.deepcapture.com/strange-occurrences-and-a-story-about-naked-short-selling/

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We've Got Bats Trading in our Belfry. Bats Trading gets the crown jewel, Shana Madoff's (niece of Bernie, daughter of his brother / partner Peter Madoff),  husband, Eric Swanson (formerly of the SEC), and now working with Bats Trading to try to make the trading pool as dark as possible, "proprietary" you know, some pigs are more equal than others. A little two bit trader like you has to show your pathetic portfolio positions, which they openly share, as they chuckle amongst themselves, got him!

Bernie smirked in the video, saying he has friends in the SEC. Several SEC employees attended his partner, Peter Madoff's Daughter Shana's Wedding to Bat Trading Employee and Attorney, Eric Swanson, formerly with the SEC. The SEC acts like it is a private club, where those who tow the party line, get lucrative jobs in the hedge fund industry, etc, as payment for covering up the tracks of the manipulators.

The SEC investigated Madoff, continually, and found nothing wrong with Madoff's shell game, that either did no trading, traded continually, or bought treasury bonds that guaranteed 10 to 15 % returns, year in, year out, depending on which fish story you are buying today.

Many of us wrote letters to the SEC, detailing the corruption and naked short selling that has destroyed our enterprises. The SEC promptly deposited our complaints in the circular file.

Now the whole economy is crumbling! This is an agency that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, or rather just lop the top tier off and unpin the worker bees wings.

My better half, also wrote a letter  to the SEC in October of 2008, which included a warning about BATS Trading (see letter below).

The SEC refused to investigate John Mack for insider trading. He apparently had too much "juice" so the SEC instead fired the SEC investigator, Gary Aguirre, for pursuing John Mack aka Mack the Knife. (see Aguirre story below).

The SEC prefers to go after the women, Martha and Muriel, oh, and Marc Cuban, (currently under investigation for insider trading with his own mama), Broadcom lottery winner, (what, you didn't get yours, what's that website he's running now, Marc Cuban Tells Us What To Buy and Sell . Com. Then you use your "juice" to encourage people to buy and sell, so you can profit.

Make no mistake about it. The crooks are running this show. No Lobbyists is a nice idea. I am going to refrain from giving praise for ideas. I'm from Missouri. You'll have to show me.

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Video of Cramer throwing his United States Subpoena on the floor on national TV
http://www.deepcapture.com/jim-cramer-discusses-subpoena-with-
herb-greenberg-the-worst-business-journalist-in-america/

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Imagine Bernie, con man extraordinaire, convincing you to join the club, by reducing you to any idiot if you ask any questions of the potter. This pool is black and murky, and many couldn't wait to get wet, kicking and screaming, let me in. It could happen.  But you said you don't believe in the devil. Sorry folks. Proceed with caution. Once you enter the rabbit hole, you will never be the same.

Perhaps we need to go back to having a Queen here, to yell, "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" Maybe a sexy movie star to do the dirty deed. Uma is busy these days with a Madoff victim. Will we see any arrests? Even a little bitty token?  Or are we left with our ear to the door, trying to hear  the back slapping going on, on the other side. All the King's men are still at the party. Rack of Lamb with garlic and rosemary, with a side of garlic blue mashed, and fresh steamed broccoli, sounds good about now.

One thing you can guarantee:

Silence = More of the same

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What do John Mack, Gary Aguirre, and Microsoft have in common?

In 2006, Gary Aguirre was involved in a flurry of political and media attention following a front page New York Times article detailing Aguirre’s investigation of a politically-sensitive insider-trading case. Aguirre is a former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyer who was dismissed by the agency following his attempt to subpoena John Mack, now the CEO of Morgan Stanley, in an insider trading investigation of Pequot Capital Management, a leading hedge fund. Hedge funds are unregulated private investment funds that typically engage in unconventional investment strategies, such as short-selling. Mack briefly served as the chairman of Pequot before being hired by Morgan Stanley as their CEO.  Click here to read the New York Times article!  Click here to read GAP's original statement!  

In September 2005, Aguirre was fired 11 days after being awarded a two-step pay increase. Since coming to GAP, Aguirre testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “Hedge Fund and Analysts: How Independent Is Their Relationship?” At the hearing, Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa) expressed his outrage at SEC attempts to silence Aguirre, announcing his commitment to investigate further. Aguirre has provided documentary evidence to Congress which support his assertion that Mack should have been subpoenaed to take his testimony.

Aguirre’s battle dates back to June 2005, when he suddenly encountered resistance at the SEC during the course of his investigation of Pequot. A $7 billion hedge fund, Pequot’s CEO is Arthur J. Samberg, a long time friend of Mack. Prior to that date, Aguirre had been investigating the case for months, issuing over 90 subpoenas without obstruction.

Continue Reading Here & Updates to the Aguirre Debacle >>  http://www.whistleblower.org/template/page.cfm?page_id=179

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Merril Pays $15 Billion in Bonuses After Taking $10 Billion in TARP Funds

 

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Location: Blogs Bob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog Posted by:   bobo 1/23/2009 7:13 AM It's really not a surprise.After all, the logic, or rather the gun to the head of the taxpayer by John Paulson, was that the economy would vaporize if we didn't take taxpayer money and give it to Wall Street banks and insurance companies, to, er, lend, or to relieve them of the burden of having to carry the toxic paper they created on their books any longer.At the time, I said that was clearly a lie, and all this would be is a redistribution from the Treasury, to the Wall Street buddies of Paulson's who got us into the mess in the first place.Now we discover, gasp, that Merril took $10 billion of your money (from TARP - we don't know how much more they've gotten through the Fed, because the Fed refuses to disclose that, or what collateral they took in return), and paid out $15 billion in bonuses, even as the company went BK in all but signing the papers.And nobody will stop them, or do anything. Oh, there may be some fist shaking and pretend anger, maybe a hearing or three, but in the end, Wall Street got your money after screwing the world by getting the global banking system pregnant with toxic crap (and keeping the massive profits made from doing so), and instead of using it to shore up balance sheets as advertised, put it directly into their pockets without the least bit of pretense.You paid your taxes/worked for 7 or more months for the government, and Wall Street took your money, the fruits of your labor, and walked away with it, even as the new/old administration demands far more sacrifice from you - i.e. more of your money, and your children's money.This was in fact predicted, by among others, your humble bunny. It isn't at all a surprise. I could see it coming within seconds of hearing the demand for TARP - blackmail, basically, by Wall Street. Give us the keys to the Treasury, or the world will end. Simple extortion.And it worked. It worked. They won, you lost. Game over.

Continue reading here >> http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/EntryID/744/Default.aspx

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As An Aside: Make Work Programs Don't Work

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Location: Blogs Bob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog Posted by:   bobo 1/20/2009 10:39 PM Any serious student of monetary policy or financial history has got to be familiar with the New Deal policies of Roosevelt - largely, and completely erroneously, thought to have pulled the nation out of the Great Depression.Hogwash.Didn't happen that way. The New Deal, and all the public works projects designed to create new jobs, were completely ineffective against the scourge of the Great Depression. Fact is that the Depression continued right up until we got into WW2 - amazing what sending 16 million men off to battle will do for unemployment stats, huh? As well as what going into a wartime economy, with price controls, rationing, and massive production to support the war effort, will do, eh?The pablum being sold by most politicians and economists is that bailouts and make-work efforts a la Roosevelt will work this time, just as they worked last time. Except they didn't. Last time. Unemployment, depressed GDP, every meaningful measure of economic activity actually FAILED TO IMPROVE due to the New Deal - the entire thing was a failure by all reasonable tests. Its supposed success is a fiction, just as the supposed cessation of short selling due to the short selling ban is a fiction. The New Deal didn't do squat, and likely hurt the country, just as the short selling ban saw a trebling of short selling during the ban. The whole thing is a farce and a lie.And yet this is what the great minds of our time have come up with to idolize as the solution to the current crisis. Or at least our best shot at righting the ship.Huh.Note that even as the Treasury Secretary appears before Congress over his tax dodging, nobody seems that interested that the most incredible delivery failures of government bonds in history took place on his watch.Doesn't that give one pause to question how he will do as Treasury Secretary? No? What would you look at, other than his tax dodging and proximity to Wall Street, if not the largest accumulation of FTDs in the entire history of mankind? In other words, what would he have to do to be barred from holding the post? What is worse, other than running Enron or maybe running Goldman while it was infecting the entire world economy with toxic paper? Doh - that didn't stop the last Secretary from getting the job, did it? And being at the center of naked short selling didn't really quash his ability to take the post, and orchestrate the single largest redistribution of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street ever seen.Scratch all my objections.I suppose there are no crimes low or high enough to get one banned from holding government office these days.

Continue Reading Here >> http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/EntryID/743/Default.aspx

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Phantom Shares Video

Tagline : Overstock.com is the poster child for naked short selling.

Patrick Byrne CEO Overstock.com

George Chanos - Kynikos Associates Hedge Fund

My favorite part is at the end with Patrick getting into his jeep:

Like these roads his battle still seems uphill but Byrne says he won’t quit.

“ So it becomes like a game of chicken. And I’m putting a brick on the accelerator and take my hands off the wheel. And if they do the same thing and we crash, we crash. “
P Byrne

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4490541725797746038

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David Patch of Investigate the SEC Hits Another Home Run

New Dave Patch Comment Letter re: Amendments to Regulation SHO (Interim final temporary rule)

Letter to

Ms. Florence E. Harmon
100 F Street, NE
Washington, DC 20549-1090

Excerpt

Point of reference:
“Ms. Schapiro said that she met with Mr. Cox last August and told him that there had been “a  migration” of professionals out of more tightly regulated brokerages to less-policed investment-  advisory firms.  “The SEC has not shared our view that this is something to be concerned about,” she said.’2
It is clear by the history of recent reforms that the Commission has similarly not shared the views of a  Shapiro led NASD relative to the requirements for settlement in the short sale process.  As the  Commission continues to seek input from the firms engaged in short selling, leniency is placed on  ‘prompt and accurate’ settlement of securities in order to protect the sellers from what they claim to be cost or pricing burdens.

“It would be very costly and operationally burdensome for such a fund to reconcile its trades and  update its books and records, among other things, if its clearing broker closes out a large number of  the trades placed with it.”

Costly and operationally burdensome to be forced to close out positions in which the short sale process was not conducted under the general guidelines of regulatory rulemaking?  Why should the costs of the  short seller be placed higher in the pecking order to the cost burdens of the investor who met the standards of trade by making the capital available on-time for receipt of settlement?

Under similar logic, the MFA admits that settlement failures carry a burden in themselves to hedge  funds.

“MFA members have strong incentives to prevent failures to deliver from occurring. Securities that fail to deliver are disruptive to a fund’s trading program because they interfere with a fund’s risk management calculation and introduce another layer of uncertainty—the risk of being closed-out.”

Continue Reading Here >> http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-30-08/s73008-66.pdf

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Self-Probe? Ha!

By Don Bauder | Published Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that is supposed to protect investors from Wall Street predators, says it is going to investigate how it missed the Bernie Madoff scam. San Diego’s Gary Aguirre, speaking from personal experience, knows that’s impossible. Any securities agency probe will be a cover-up.

New York’s Madoff ran a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. The securities commission admits that allegations about Madoff’s scheme had been repeatedly brought to the agency’s attention since 1999. “I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations,” proclaimed the agency’s Bush-era chairman, Christopher Cox, last month, announcing the supposed self-probe.

Continue Reading Here >> http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/jan/21/city-light-1/

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It's not like the SEC doesn't know. We have been explicit in our letter to them. The problem is that the SEC is run by the old boys club. Where Martha and Muriel are the scapegoats. It's a great club, if you can get in. Safe in Madoff's world. Retirement for you and your kith and kin. Take a bite of the magic mushroom and descend into  the world of King Midas and his golden proprietary touch, where dogs kill and eat other dogs, and humanity, integrity and ethics, do not exist.

CHANGE! HELLO  MR. PRESIDENT. BARRY! REMEMBER ME. FROM THE HOOD. YOU NEED TO SEE WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE. HOPEFULLY YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE CABAL, AND JUST IGNORANT, and will be itching to fix this problem.

The reality is, that if good, small companies are never allowed to achieve Wall Street "profitability", due to dark pools of money that take your green money and turn it into their gold, and all entreprenurial companies (short of a microsoft)are doomed to go out of business, it is the end of civilization as we knew it. Small businesses are the health of this nation. Maybe we need  to get back to bartering with people of quality. Vote your wallets.

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The Quants are Here!  The Quants are Here!

It doesn't sound like a level playing field when some traders get faster service just by their proximity to NY. Dark pools circling around your nestegg. Perhaps one last fine herb omelet is in order.

The Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2006

Fast Lane
Firms Seek Edge Through Speed As Computer Trading Expands

Tradebot Moves Its Machines Into Exchange Buildings; Competitors Follow Suit

100 Million Shares in a Day

By Aaron Lucchetti
NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- About four years ago, Dave Cummings moved his trading firm's computers from a storefront in this Kansas City suburb to buildings in New York and New Jersey that house central computers for two big electronic stock exchanges.

The move shaved a precious fraction of a second from the time it takes Mr. Cummings's firm, Tradebot Systems Inc., to buy or sell a stock on computer-based exchanges like Archipelago. It now takes Tradebot about 1/1000 of a second to trade a stock, compared with 20/1000 before the move -- a difference of about the time it takes a computer signal to zip at nearly the speed of light from Kansas City to New York and back.

That may not seem like a big difference, but in Mr. Cummings's obscure corner of the stock- trading universe, speed is critical and fractions of seconds loom large. Tradebot's computers are programmed to detect, among other things, tiny, fleeting differences between bid and offer prices of stocks, then to pounce, buying stocks at one price and almost immediately reselling them for a fraction more. If his firm hadn't moved its computers, says Mr. Cummings, "we'd be out of business."

Dozens of other firms, ranging from Citadel Derivatives Group to a brokerage unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., also employ split-second trading strategies. That has set off an arms race to shave the time it takes for orders to reach the computers of electronic exchanges. In their quest for the choicest locations, at least 40 of Tradebot's competitors have carted their computers to the same buildings, a practice known as co-location.

The kind of trading practiced by Mr. Cummings is a particularly fast form of "algorithmic" or "black-box" trading, in which computer programs decide when to buy and sell securities. Hedge funds such as SAC Capital Advisors, D.E. Shaw & Co. and Renaissance Technologies have been using computers in their investment strategies for years. These days, a variety of new computer strategies rely on lightning-quick trading. For example, computers are being programmed to take news headlines into account when executing trades, and media companies including Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters Group have begun releasing news in computer-readable formats that cater to them.  

Mr. Cummings's strategy -- which is shorter term than most and is highly reliant on speed -- was made possible by the growth of electronic-trading networks. These trading platforms -- Globex at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Archipelago at NYSE Group, INET at Nasdaq Stock Market and others -- account for more than half of all trading in household-name stocks and financial futures contracts.

Trading mostly Mr. Cummings's own money, privately held Tradebot, which has about 20 employees, makes between $30,000 and $150,000 a day and up to $20 million a year, people familiar with its finances say.  Mr. Cummings's strategy -- which is shorter term than most and is highly reliant on speed -- was made possible by the growth of electronic-trading networks.

These trading platforms -- Globex at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Archipelago at NYSE Group, INET at Nasdaq Stock Market and others -- account for more than half of all trading in household-name stocks and financial
futures contracts.

Continue Reading Here >> http://www.batstrading.com/news_article_pdf/Firms%20Seek%20Edge%20Through%20Speed%20As%20Computer%20Trading%20Expands.pdf

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Bats In Our Belfry

http://www.batstrading.com/

http://www.batstrading.com/features.php

Dark Anonymous Routing Technique (DART) BATS' latest enhancement to its smart order router. This routing strategy routes to dark pools offering possible price improvement and lower access fees.

Scanning Against Dark Liquidity Pools BATS' Dark Scan offers subscribers the opportunity for price improvement and reduced access fees.

Hidden Liquidity at Lower Access Fees BATS' Dark Match pricing provides lower access fees for executions against hidden liquidity based on execution size.

Market Volume [Market Volume Page]  

 

Data for
Thu Jan 22 Tape A
(NYSE) Tape B
(Regionals) Tape C
(Nasdaq) Total Market Volume 5,846,787,283 2,498,906,621 2,337,215,791 10,682,909,695 BATS Volume* 617,593,707 422,535,491 293,819,365 1,333,948,563 BATS % Market* 10.56% 16.91% 12.57% 12.49% BATS Symbols 0 0 0 0 * Includes matched plus routed volume (Data is delayed at least 20 minutes)

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Repost (you can't make this stuff up)

Shana Madoff's Husband (Daughter of Bernie Madoff’s brother Peter. She married Eric Swanson, formerly of the SEC, who now works for BATS TRADING!

http://www.batstrading.com/

 

Eric Swanson - SEC - Bats Trading
http://businesssheet.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/makeover-magic-shanas-sec-husbands-new-bio

BATS Appoints General Counsel To Handle Exchange Application

Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:55am EST

 

[-] Text [+]

Eric Swanson, Former SEC Lawyer, Will Be Based in NYC
KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(Business Wire)--BATS Trading Inc. hired Eric Swanson as general counsel and said
that his primary initial responsibilities will be working with the
Securities and Exchange Commission as BATS seeks SEC approval of its
exchange application.

Mr. Swanson has a significant history with the SEC, having served
at the Commission from 1996-2006 and rising to the title of Assistant
Director in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations'
market oversight unit in Washington. His duties included supervising
the Commission's inspection program responsible for regulatory
oversight of trading on the securities exchanges and ECNs.

"We're excited to add Eric to our growing team and look forward to
his contributions as we move towards Exchange status," said Chief
Executive Joe Ratterman, noting that Mr. Swanson will report directly
to him. "With his strong background and knowledge of the SEC and
market centers, Eric is the ideal individual to work with the
Commission during this process."

During his tenure at the SEC, Mr. Swanson supervised and conducted
inspections and examinations that involved a wide range of issues
including best execution, order handling, insider trading, market
manipulation, and compliance with Regulation ATS. In addition, Mr.
Swanson was responsible for the identification of regulatory risks and
the development of parameters for surveillance and examination
programs.

A frequent speaker at securities industry functions, Mr. Swanson
was most recently chief counsel and vice president of regulatory
strategy at Ameriprise Financial. He graduated from the University of
Minnesota and earned his law degree at Hamline University School of
Law in St. Paul, Minn.

About BATS Trading

BATS Trading, based in Kansas City, Mo., with additional offices
in New York, was launched in January 2006 and operates one of the
fastest-growing, top-tier equity markets in the United States. The
BATS platform is developed by a core team of market and technology
professionals, catering to the needs of the broker-dealer community.
Included in the BATS customer base are more than 240 broker-dealers
and a broad-based ownership group of Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche
Bank, GETCO, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Lime Brokerage, Morgan
Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Wedbush. BATS recently recorded record
volume of 883 million shares in a single day. BATS...Making Markets Better. Continue Reading Here >> http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS128563+18-Jan-2008+BW20080118

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Makeover Time: Madoff SEC Husband's Redacted Bio

Caroline Waxler | Dec 18, 2008 12:03 PM

Thanks to some eagle-eyed commenters we were alerted to Mr. Shana Madoff's bio, and (very handsome) picture, but when we checked it out this morning, it looked suspiciously different.

But there's no greater blogging gift than caching.

 

Eric Swanson

Senior Vice President, General Counsel Bats Tradin

Eric Swanson was hired as general counsel in January 2008 and moved immediately into the role of working with the Securities and Exchange Commission as BATS seeks SEC approval of its exchange application. He is based in BATS' New York City office.

Mr. Swanson has a significant history with the SEC, having served at the Commission from 1996-2006 and rising to the title of Assistant Director in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations' market oversight unit in Washington. His duties included supervising the Commission's inspection program responsible for regulatory oversight of trading on the securities exchanges and ECNs.

"We're excited to add Eric to our growing team and look forward to his contributions as we move towards Exchange status," said Chief Executive Joe Ratterman, noting that Mr. Swenson will report directly to him. "With his strong background and knowledge of the SEC and market centers, Eric is the ideal individual to work with the Commission during this process."

During his tenure at the SEC, Mr. Swesnon , supervised and conducted inspections and examinations that involved a wide range of issues including best execution, order handling, insider trading, market manipulation, and compliance with Regulation ATS. In addition, Mr. Swenson was responsible for the identification of regulatory risks and the development of parameters for surveillance and examination programs

A frequent speaker at securities industry functions, Mr. Swanson was most recently chief counsel and vice president of regulatory strategy at Ameriprise Financial. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and earned his law degree at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. He and his family live in New York.

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Heard on the net:

How many of you remember the day that Shelby, as HEAD of the Sen finance committee, on national TV, believe it was on cnbc one morning, REFUSED TO  investigate charges of naked short selling?

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From inside the barn

http://schumer.senate.gov/

Chuck Schumer.

But throughout the summer, hedge fund and private equity managers accelerated their political donations. In June alone, they sent $1 million to the Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was publicly undecided on the tax hike.

In August, after the generous donations from investment moguls, Schumer came out against the tax hike.

What happened here? If you believe The New York Times’ narrative, Schumer sided with his tax-hating Wall Street donor base over his party and his progressive principles, while Obama, Clinton and the bills’ sponsors fought for the little guy, which meant taxing the big guys. The real drama is less black and white, but even more distasteful.

Back in January, Schumer called leading private equity and hedge fund partners to a dinner in Manhattan, where he told them how the game was played. These partnerships were famously profitable, but unlike other big industries in the U.S., they weren’t playing in Washington. In lobbying and campaign contributions, they seriously lagged behind the energy industry or traditional brokerages.

Schumer’s message that night, as distilled from The New York Times account of it, was: “That’s a pretty nice industry you guys got going. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

The entire industry gave less than $2 million per year before 2006, while Goldman Sachs, for example, spent $3 million and AT&T $23 million that year alone. On the score of campaign contributions, hedge funds and private equity were similarly frugal. A New York Times analysis in March found that in the 2000 cycle, these firms gave only $5 million to federal candidates. Schumer and his Democrats have fixed that.

The Blackstone Group, a hedge fund giant, spent $3.7 million on lobbying in the first six months of 2007, after having spent less than $250,000 last year. The industry made sure to employ top Democratic lobbyists, including Schumer’s former staff counsel, as well as Republicans.

Continue Reading Here >>  http://www.examiner.com/a-921147~Timothy_P__Carney__Schumer__Democrats_show_hedge_funds_the_D_C__ropes.html

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Barney Frank helping his Fannie Mae boyfriend to feed at the trough. And no tea party is complete without hedge fund alley Connecticut Senator Chrisopher Dodd.

 

Sen. Chris Dodd Tied To Countrywide Mortgages

By

Christopher Keating

 on June 13, 2008 1:00 PM

| Permalink | Comments (6)

From the Wall Street Journal to the Associated Press, the national media were reporting Friday that U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd received favorable mortgage rates from a highly controversial mortgage company.

Dodd received two 30-year loans from Countrywide Financial Corp., whose chairman and chief executive officer, Angelo Mozilo, has testified in front of Congress about problems in the subprime crisis.

Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who is currently the chairman of the Senate banking committee, was designated as a "Friend of Angelo,'' along with former Cabinet member Donna Shalala and other high-profile Washington insider

Republicans immediately said the disclosure would end Dodd's chances of being a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. Some had believed that Dodd had a good chance of being selected as a V.P. candidate because of his foreign-policy experience and his ties to Obama and to Caroline Kennedy, one of the key people who is screening the VP candidates for Obama.

Continue Reading Here>> http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/2008/12/madoff-cfo-frank-dipascali-mar.php

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Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection

Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair promoted GSEs while former 'spouse' was Fannie Mae executive.

“Herb Moses, who helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs, has left the mortgage industry,” Darryl Hicks wrote for NMN.  “Mr. Moses - whose last day was Feb. 13 - spent the past seven years at Fannie Mae, most recently as director of housing initiatives. Over the course of time, he played an instrumental role in developing the company’s Title One and 203(k) home improvement lending programs.”

Hicks explained in his story how Moses orchestrated a collaborative effort between Fannie Mae and the Department of Agriculture.

“The Dartmouth grad also played a crucial role in brokering a relationship between Fannie Mae and the Department of Agriculture,” Hicks wrote. “This led to the creation of Fannie Mae’s rural housing program where the secondary marketing agency agreed to purchase small farm loans insured through the department.” 

Continue reading here >>  http://forums.motortrend.com/70/7074824/the-drive-in/barney-franks-boyfriend-was-fannie-exec-during/index.html

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  Recs: 10

Mother Jones is Not the Only One with Disappearing Virtual Ink

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/2008/12/madoff-cfo-frank-dipascali-mar.php

Madoff CFO, Frank Dipascali, Married to JPMorganChase Private Banker

December 19, 2008, 5:34PM

Update: Joanne Dipascali actually works out of JPMorgan Chase's Iselin NJ office which is the center of the firm's mortgage business. JPMorgan Chase frantically pushed mortgages to anyone who could sign on the dotted line and then pooled them for resale. The statistics in this 2007 offering tells all. Out of a  $473 million mortgage pool, only $181 million of mortgages issued were supported by any income verification whatsoever. $440 million of the mortgages are interest only, $238 million had second liens at inception and the average outstanding balance is $476k.

Nice family. Frank pushes phony equities and his wife writes worthless mortgages.

Barney Frank Goes to Bat for Lender, and It Gets an Infusion

"Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn't look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund last fall.

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee."

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/106471/Political-Interference-Seen-in-Bank-Bailout-Decisions

Continue Reading Here >> http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/2008/12/madoff-cfo-frank-dipascali-mar.php

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Tommy Vallerino from National Investor Protection Coalition

http://investorprotectioncoalition.org/

Link to letters written to the SEC.

http://sec.gov/comments/s7-30-08/s73008-14.htm

My better half wrote this one.

Subject: File No. S7-30-08

From: Mike Kearney

October 17, 2008

Hello SEC,

Please show no mercy in enforcing the naked short selling rules. The people who did this hurt America. They wrecked capitalism, free enterprise and the entrepreneurial spirit of America with their greed and unfair business practices. They are shorting so fast and so furious, within minutes, with $5 to $10 million dollars at a time as Jim Cramer reports it, so they can get in and get out. Once they get in and out so fast, they do not give the sytem time to catch up and so the 3 day rule to cover is worthless. They are already pouncing on another victim.

We know of a guy who moved from the Midwest, I believe he was in Kansas City, just so he could compete with the big boys and their computers in New York City. He said he was 20/1000 of a second behind them! That is how fast this damage is done! Here is that story:

http://www.batstrading.com/news_article_pdf/Firms%20Seek%20Edge%20Through%20Speed%20As%20Computer%20Trading%20Expands.pdf

Please consider these points while evaluating taking action and fixing the problem these evil, anti-Americans have done to our economy:

1) Naked Short Selling (NSS) is not sudden and acute as they describe it, it is a chronic sickness

2) NSS schemes focus specifically on the biotech field because of the ample opportunity for fear, uncertainty and doubt given the highly technical nature of the clinical trial-biotstatistics-medical science nature of the news flow for this sector, enabling NSS pros to easily use short/distort schemes. Therefore the SEC should focus now on the RegSHO biotech stocks and investigate and prosecute immediately the criminal hedgies shorting DNDN with NSS. These NSS folks are interfering with medical advancements!

3) Financial journalists and financial analysts are part of the scheme and should be prosecuted. Go to Jim Cramer first for all the info you need. He lies about companies to move stocks. We caught him doing this with DNDN. Here is a good article in his own words:

http://www.thestreet.com/funds/realmoneyradiowrap/10329451.html

4) Collusion is a big part of the game

5) Shareholders have little to no recourse, thus, SEC needs to prosecute vigorously

6) Confidence in the fairness of the US market has deteriorated, and w/o headline SEC prosecution of illegal hedge fund activity, no one in the world will trust the NYSE, NASDAQ or any other US based stock market. Notice how the number of IPOs goes down each year.

7) The case of illegal NSS in Dendreon (DNDN) would be a perfect poster child example for the SEC, showing the vile nature of hedge funds who would try to destroy a company which is curing cancer, and restoring significant public support for the SEC.

Please help us hardworking Americans who don't have $5 to 10 million to move the market. Not that we think we should move the market. We don't think anyone has that right. We just want to invest in companies we believe in and help them grow and bring good products to market and produce jobs here in America. And we want to save for our retirement and major purchases and college. We want our money to work for us, not stolen from us.

Thank you for your time,
Mike Kearney

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Can anybody help out with this?

http://www1.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=3532&mn=29968&pt=msg&mid=6525890

This is also called the Volume Report of Members, NYSE.   Suddenly disappeared before year end.  This report was the only data series available publicly to follow short sales activity on the NYSE.  Public, Specialist, Member, and Total short sales, it was released weekly with a two week lag.  Noone could give me a straight answer as to why this was replaced with a daily sdot short sales number that was not remotely related to the old release.  NYSE, Barrons, and FINRA were contacted.   Turns out , it seems FINRA controls this release and I strongly suspect they were requested to stop releasing this report by a street firm or the nyse, at the request of a member firm.  This data was the only very revealing data on member short sales available, and now we have none.  BTW, this data revealed a change around 2004, if you crunched it, that was potentially very revealing to changes going on the short sales area.  I know.....I crunched it and submitted it to the SHO inquiry in 2006 in graphic form.  Could someone have seen that presentation and wanted the data no longer available?  Would like to know.

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Heard on the net:

TARP Has A Hollow Leg

We're headed for disaster unless the underlying accounting principles are addressed ( Mark-to-Market-- GAAP).

We can not buy ourselves out of what was an essentially criminal activity that precipitated a credit cascade/collapse with NSS leading the way.

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Interesting Blog and Commentary on Milken Spending 7 figures $?,000,000 to request a pardon from Bush.

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/will-george-w-bush-pardon-michael-milken/?loc=interstitialskip

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January 24, 2009 5:12 PM

Madoff's defender Imposing former prosecutor Sorkin an able protector; friction behind scenes   Hilary Potkewitz

When Ira Lee Sorkin headed the Securities and Exchange Commission's New York office in the mid-1980s and was prosecuting insider traders, he was known to rail against the evils of greed.

“Greed knows no bounds,” he once declared.

Some 20-odd years later, Mr. Sorkin is a white-collar criminal defense attorney, representing the person who has become the scourge of an entire city, if not the world, an individual whom one tabloid dubbed “the most-hated man in New York.”

 Continue Reading Here >> http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090125/FREE/301259974/0/TOC

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How Regulators Missed Madoff Liz Moyer, 01.27.09, 03:20 PM EST Limited resources, fragmented oversight and a lack of coordination between agencies allowed the alleged $50 billion Ponzi to flourish.http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/27/bernard-madoff-sec-business-wall-street_0127_regulators.html?feed=rss_news

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Madoff Enablers Winked at Suspected Front-Runninghttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=au4Y7Cudw2Xo&refer=home

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