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Part 7 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-7-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
by RoryKearney | July 29, 2008 at 08:13 pm | 128 views | add comment
Part 5 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
by RoryKearney | July 24, 2008 at 10:37 am | 262 views | add comment
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-5-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
by RoryKearney
Part 1 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up
by RoryKearney | July 11, 2008 at 07:13 am | 3949 views | 33 comments
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover
(corrected link)
______________
http://www.deepcapture.com/the-story-of-deep-capture-by-mark-mitchell/
To enter our $75,000 "Crack the Wall Street Cover-up!" contest read to the bottom of this (very long) story.
The Columbia School of Journalism is our nation’s finest. They grant the Pulitzer Prize, and their journal, The Columbia Journalism Review, is the profession’s gold standard. CJR reporters are high priests of a decaying temple, tending a flame in a land going dark.
In 2006 a CJR editor (a seasoned journalist formerly with Time magazine in Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, and The Far Eastern Economic Review) called me to discuss suspicions he was forming about the US financial media. I gave him leads but warned, “Chasing this will take you down a rabbit hole with no bottom.” For months he pursued his story against pressure and threats he once described as, “something out of a Hollywood B movie, but unlike the movies, the evil corporations fighting the journalist are not thugs burying toxic waste, they are Wall Street and the financial media itself.”
His exposé reveals a circle of corruption enclosing venerable Wall Street banks, shady offshore financiers, and suspiciously compliant reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNBC, and The New York Times. If you ever wonder how reporters react when a journalist investigates them (answer: like white-collar crooks they dodge interviews, lie, and hide behind lawyers), or if financial corruption interests you, then this is for you. It makes Grisham read like a book of bedtime stories, and exposes a scandal that may make Enron look like an afternoon tea.
By Patrick M. Byrne, Deep Capture Reporter
The Story of Deep Capture
NEW! Download the Story of Deep Capture in .pdf format.
By Mark Mitchell, with reporting by the Deep Capture Team
Introduction - by Mark Mitchell
I began working on a version of this story. . .
Crack the Wall Street Cover-Up Contest!
You, the Community, decide who wins
1st place = $30,000
2nd place = $20,000
3rd place = $10,000
4th place = $6,000
5th place = $4,000
6th - 10th place = $1,000 each
Total = $75,000
From “The Story of DeepCapture” you understand the crime and cover-up. Now you can win up to $30,000 for thinking of a clever way to crack the cover-up. Here’s how:
1) Crack the cover-up: do something to help the public discover DeepCapture’s exposé of Wall Street and the financial journalists who “tried to be players but became pawns.”
2) What you do is your choice: you may simply write newspapers and politicians (here is a page providing ways to do that quickly and easily), and get others to do the same. Maybe you’ll do some PR stunt (such as this). Maybe you’ll write letters to the editor, or do Youtube videos, or think of something entirely new and original (we hope you do).
3) Whatever you do must be legal. Click here for full contest rules.
4) Use the widget below to tell us what you did. That becomes your entry. Your entry can and should link to blogs, videos, audio files, letters to the editors, newspaper articles, etc. that document your efforts to crack the cover-up.
5) Multiple entries are allowed.
6) To crack the cover-up you may find it useful to learn more about this issue. The links within Mitchell’s piece are a good starting point. More detailed pieces appear on DeepCapture.
7) The community will determine the winners by continuously voting entries up and down.
8 ) At midnight, October 1, 2008, entries will be frozen and prizes awarded.
Good luck, and remember to tell your friends to come vote for your entry!
___________________
Deep Capture
The Movie
http://www.deepcapturethemovie.com/
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Patrick Byrne CEO of Overstock.com Interview on Fox last night. (4 and 1/2 minute interview)
He will also be on with Alexis Glick Monday Morning.
Naked Short selling is a Crime.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=2629930&referralPlaylistId=1292d14d0e3afdcf0b31500afefb92724c08f046
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The Easter Bunny
Excerpt
http://www.thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/EntryID/701/Default.aspx
I've gotten a lot of emails from people who are unclear on why I'm so disgusted with the market maker exemption from the SEC's emergency measure. Let me explain. The large prime brokers on Wall Street have facilitated and profited hugely from naked short selling. It couldn't take place without them acting as a cartel and cooperating with each others' fictional stock sales. They are a huge part of the problem. But now, they not only are protected by this emergency order from the very crime they perfected, they have gotten an exemption so they, and they alone, can continue to naked short. That's what the exemption means. Nobody can do it to us, but we need to do it to everyone else.
Now, consider some other wrinkles. DMA, for instance. What is that? A rave drug? No, I'm talking about Direct Market Access. That is a privilege afforded to large hedge funds by prime brokers, where they allow the hedge fund to have direct access to the executing broker, bypassing the checks and balances of the prime broker, but appearing to the executing broker as though the trade is coming directly from the prime. That effectively means that the largest hedge funds can behave as though they are the prime - including enjoying the exemptions the prime has. You see, there is nobody in the chain to question whether it is really the prime placing the massive sell orders, or whether it is some wealthy hedge fund with no desire nor intent to deliver anything. It looks the same to the executing broker with DMA. Yet another way to sidestep regulation.
Basically, the market makers have taken a measure that could have actually stopped some of the madness, and bullied or bribed the SEC into giving them the umpteenth hall pass, but with complete protection from everyone but themselves. I heard one rumor that one uber powerful Wall Street honcho told Cox that unless he granted an exemption, the markets wouldn't function for the 30 days of the rule's temporary duration - effectively causing a meltdown and depression. A guy in a position to stop the markets, no BS. That's called extortion, if true. Someone should pull the phone logs and see if that discussion happened. DOJ? But guess what, it won't ever take place. They get away with it again. This is just a rumor, but I have heard it from multiple sources now, and it has the ring of truth. Nothing would surprise me.
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Don't forget to stop by DeepCapture to win part of the $75,000 dollars in prizes for Cracking the Wall Street Cover-Up Contest.
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Here are the chosen ones, the "naked nineteen", the privileged company's with juice, whose connections have afforded them a Congressional bypass to bobble along in the stock market without allowing any market participants, (stock traders), to "naked short" them. They are still allowed to be shorted like every stock, they are not allowed to be "naked shorted", in other words, shares may not be bought or sold without actually locating the shares first, which otherwise would increase the downward pressure. Take it down and reap the rewards, while the brokers get paid for the trade, for assisting (and who knows what else. On Wall Street it is not unheard of for envelopes of cash to change hands).
BNP Paribas Securities Corp. BNPQF or BNPQY
Bank of America Corporation BAC
Barclays PLC BCS
Citigroup Inc. C
Credit Suisse Group CS
Daiwa Securities Group Inc. DSECY
Deutsche Bank Group AG DB
Allianz SE AZ
Goldman, Sachs Group Inc GS
Royal Bank ADS RBS
HSBC Holdings PLC ADS HBC and HSI
J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. LEH
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. MER
Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. MFG
Morgan Stanley MS
UBS AG UBS
Freddie Mac FRE
Fannie Mae FNM
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Everything I write is my opinion. Leave a comment and yours. If I have erred, I apologize profusely, and I will make the correction. Bear in mind that the eye is faster than the fingers, and they are both trying to catch up to the brain. In other words, pardon my physical and spiritual errors. I am just trying to have some fun with it. Otherwise it is too burdensome, in more ways than all you anonymous people out in cyberland can't imagine. The truth will set you free. tia
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Ann Landers quotes (American Advice columnist, 1918-2002
“The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie”
“Know when to tune out, if you listen to too much advice you may wind up making other peoples mistakes.”
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/ann_landers/
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Naked Shorts Definition
"Somebody knocks on your companies door and when you open it, the grim reaper is standing there grinning." RK
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http://www.sandiegomagazine.com/media/San-Diego-Magazine/August-2008/The-Devil-and-Gary-Aguirre/
The Devil and Gary Aguirre Spurred by a strong sense of justice and a desire for public service, Gary Aguirre has taken on the SEC and a devilish can of worms
By s.d. liddick | Photograph by Max Dolberg
Excerpts
Three years after the investigation was killed, the entire Pequot fiasco—shot through with improprieties—has resulted in a list of recommendations but no real castigation. Aguirre, meanwhile, has opened a new law firm, specializing in investment cases. He’s also writing a book about his experience with the SEC. But he’s more concerned about a system of American capitalism that seems to have spun out of control (ironically) since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The SEC is a poster child, he points out, for government agencies that have deteriorated—in the past two decades—from private-industry watchdogs into clandestine protectors. Top-level SEC administrators, he says, jump back and forth through a revolving door between Wall Street and the agency—ensuring cozy relations between two entities that are supposed to maintain a prejudiced separation. The fox is guarding the henhouse, and Aguirre worries that the SEC is only part of the story. The systematic failure he saw in the agency’s policing ability (and the hypocrisy that came with it) appears to extend to the FDA, the EPA and a host of other government agencies. It’s a situation with fertile parallels to The Master and Margarita.
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After he graduated from Georgetown, a fraud investigator’s position came open at the SEC, and one of Aguirre’s advisers suggested he apply for it. He got the job and found himself in a unique and fortunate position: He was beginning a second career in law, he was financially comfortable as a result of the first, and he was celebrating the birth of twins. What’s more, he was acting as a government-appointed Wall Street watchdog—the fulfillment of that public service obligation.
And then entered “Mack the Knife.”
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“As it says in the Senate report, Samberg’s orders were sometimes for twice as much stock as sold on that day. So if you’re selling 200,000 shares that day, he wanted to buy 400,000. Well, how come you’re buying all of this if you’ve never done any research, you haven’t talked to these guys, you don’t follow the stock? There was no rational explanation why this guy bought more stock than anybody else in the country during these 30 days. So then we began to backtrack—who did he talk to immediately before he bought it that could’ve known anything about this stock? Well, of course, there was only one person, and that was John Mack.”
Mack, former head of Morgan Stanley, is one of the most inside of Wall Street insiders—a financial sector untouchable. After a bit more digging, Aguirre surmised that Mack had been in Switzerland before the G.E. buyout and had talked to one of Heller’s advisers, Credit Suisse. (Mack was being courted by the company during the time of the suspicious trades and later became its CEO.) He figured out that Mack had been tipped off by the people at Credit Suisse to the fact that Heller was about to be bought by G.E., which of course would mean its stock prices would skyrocket. The real question was: Did Mack share that insider knowledge with Pequot CEO Samberg?
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A good quote from the Investor Village Dendreon message board
These guys are NOT going to cover voluntarily. They got Cox to give them a hole in the regulation and enough time to pick and choose when to cover and walk away. These regulators aren't regulating. They are merely providing the robbers flashlights on how to get out of the US VAULTS with all our cash.
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I love this picture of Cramer and Spitzer. Can somebody cofirm that the third guy is Rocker?
From http://www.DeepCapture.com
So this is a rough crowd. Says one Wall Street trader: “It was the day the bad guys came to town — when Steinhardt and his people arrived.”
One of Steinhardt’s people is Jim Cramer. Another is Cramer’s wife, who was known as the “Trading Goddess” when she worked as Steinhardt’s head trader. Maria Bartiromo, a CNBC anchor known as the “Money Honey,” is married to the top partner in Steinhardt’s newest hedge fund. (A former employee of Cramer’s hedge fund has written that Cramer often fed tips to the Money Honey, trading ahead of her stories, and it is rumored that she recruited him to CNBC.)
And then there is David Rocker, the short-selling hedge fund manager believed to be scheming, along with Cramer and Herb, with Gradient Analytics, the financial research shop under SEC investigation in 2006.
Cramer says he’s met Rocker only once - apparently while squeezing the grapefruit at some grocery store. But the truth is, Cramer knows Rocker well. Rocker is a former employee of Steinhardt’s hedge fund. He worked there at the same time as the Trading Goddess.
And, until recently, Rocker was the largest outside shareholder in Cramer’s website, TheStreet.com. Cramer sometimes quotes the hedge fund manager on his television show, and once interviewed him live. Rocker is also a regular writer for TheStreet.com, where he bashes stocks that Cramer subsequently also bashes in multiple stories on both the website and CNBC.
In February 2006, the SEC is investigating Gradient Analytics for disseminating false information about public companies. The agency has affidavits from former employees who say that Gradient’s “independent research” is produced by recent University of Arizona graduates who know little to nothing about finance and essentially take dictation from hedge fund managers, including David Rocker.
One of these employees says that Herb conspired with Rocker to hold his negative stories (premised on Gradient’s false information) until Rocker could establish short positions. This is called front-running - a jailable offense. It is reasonable to suspect that Rocker had similar relationships with TheStreet.com (of which he has owned a substantial portion) and other media.
Not long before Cramer announced his SEC subpoenas, Rocker sold all of his shares in TheStreet.com. Cramer sold around $2 million of his own shares. If Cramer knew about the SEC investigation before he sold his shares, which was almost certainly the case, he was trading on insider information - another jailable offense.
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OK. I reiterate. I don't like Cramer and I don't like the way he repeatedly lied and lies about Dendreon. Biotechs are notorious targets by the short and distort crowd. Cramer used his bully pulpit to help them smash up the stock. What other reason can there be for a grown "man" to trash a little biotech on the cutting edge of fundamentally changing the way cancer is treated. Cramer bashed Provenge, a safe and effective, non invasive immunotherapy for end stage prostate cancer, that the FDA has delayed for a year for no reason other than corruption from everything that I can surmise. We go to court on the 29th of July for our appeal against the FDA. I am not optimistic. The same lack of transparency in our FDA, as well as lack of congressional oversight over it, is similar to how the congress regulates the SEC. They grandstand as they peek in every once in a while.
Visit us at CareToLive
http://www.CareToLive.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqAx7uZAS90
Our Biotechs are "naked shorted" out the wazoo. Might that be the reason they are still treating cancer with Mustard Gas?
FYI the Federal Reserve is also a privately owned organization and like the SEC it is not a US government agency.
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The Me Age.
Regulate Thyself!
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9/26/05
Cramer lies about Dendreon on CNBC. He said Provenge failed FDA approval. Provenge wasn't up for approval until 5/15/07.
9/27/05
Mark Haines of CNBC apologizes on the morning show, Squawk Box, for Cramer's error.
Cramer later that night apologized but then went on to lie by saying the problem with Provenge was survival. Survival was the reason the FDA called for an Advisory Committee.
Cramer's degrading rant on Monday's show, 9/26/05, was right before Dendreon's CEO was presenting at UBS. It is important to note that UBS is the only company that downgraded Dendreon, not once, but four times in 12 months after Dendreon reported good steps of progress.
And then Mr. Cramer went into adisgusting berating of us shareholders, calling us drunken, carousing, gambling Falstaffs. He called Dendreon a battleground stock. "Dendreon investors might as well take their money to Vegas."
12/22/06
Cramer talks about the Games Hedge Funds Play. He talks about the amount of money it takes to drive down a stock, he talks about lying and fomenting to hurt a stock, especially if the company reports good news.
http://www.thestreet.com/funds/realmoneyradiowrap/10329451.html
3/28/07
The night before the Provenge advisory panel hearing Cramer yells, "Sell, sell, sell!"
3/29/07
After the good panel vote Cramer said he confused it with the fictional drug from a 1993 movie, "The Fugitive," in which Dr. Richard Kimble, played by Harrison Ford, tries to expose a fictitious pharmaceutical company, Devlin-MacGregor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/business/media/09cramer.html?ref=business
4/12/07
Cramer said in a video this afternoon on TheStreet.com that this Dendreon (DNDN-NASDAQ) is a classic case of short sellers not covering themselves by not buying calls with the strikes above. Cramer said there are some short sellers who lost their year on DNDN.
http://biohealthinvestor.com/2007/04/cramer-looking-for-next-dendreon.html
11/2/07
"I got into so much trouble with Dendreon once. ... Dendreon is just a failed biotech that I want nothing to do with." He made another Devlin-MacGregor reference.
http://www.thestreet.com/s/cramers-mad-money-lightning-round-hop-into-ford/funds/lightninground/10388222_2.html
7/9/08
Cramer calls Dendreon a dog.
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Ted Girgus' doctor doesn't think Dendreon is a Dog.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Q0uQAL_YDA
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"The S.E.C. said the defendants met at New York City bars and restaurants, where they would exchange cash wrapped in newspapers or concealed in envelopes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/business/21fraud.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214682360-QGxaOPCv6LReMV1suW42TA
Here is a blog about Congress being allowed to trade on inside information. The bill to stop it was shot down.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/03/28/more-on-congress-and-insider-trading/
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CONGRESS, MAKE THE SEC HAVE THE DTCC SETTLE ALL THE TRADES!
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How can overstock.com (ostk) get back on the REG SHO list. I thought once you get off that corrupt "grandfathered" Naked Short List, you can't get back on. What is the point?
This is an abomination! Call 911. Where is the Department of Justice. Where is our government. The job has become a year round V A C A T I O N. Wasting time now talking of impeaching a president with 5 months to go. We need a brain check. Settle the trades in all companies. The crooks will neither admit nor deny guilt and get a little fine when somebody finally decides to stop this charade. Let's see. It's been going on for years, unabated. Now we will need to have a few more years of comment periods. They finance committee said they can't get to it until next year. It's a nice job if you can get it.
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Wall Street wags the biotech industry. Years before Provenge finished its trials and went to the FDA for review.
I remember 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." Mike Huckman CNBC 3/22/2007
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=971&mn=50231&pt=msg&mid=1729997
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121703904765687047.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Regulators Seize First Heritage,
First National Bank of Nevada By DAMIAN PALETTA
July 26, 2008 1:02 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators shut down two national banks late Friday in the latest chapter of the credit crisis, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. successfully protected all depositors by selling the accounts to Mutual of Omaha Bank.
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Listen to the show
Summer School: Naked short selling
We're taking you back to the basics with our summer refresher course on finance terms. Today, we expose ourselves to naked short selling.
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Here is FDA Commissioner "Andy" Von Eschenbach sitting next to convicted felon (currently seeking a pardon from Bush to rival Clinton's Marc Rich connection pardon) Michael Milken the Junk Bond King and current Investor in Prostate Cancer through Proquest Investments for one, etc and Richard Pazdur, Incompetent FDA Cancer Czar.
Andy Gives His Bridge Building Shtick Again
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
This video played on Cspan this weekend. Andy spoke at the U of Louisville.
http://www.uoflhealthcare.org/Info/NewsMediaCenter/MediaDetail/tabid/511/Default.aspx?itemid=12
At 00:16:15 minutes Andy builds his bridge
At 1:13:00 He blows it up
there is a problem if drugs are approved prematurely and have adverse outcomes on someone's life. But there is also problems when drugs are not approved and there are patient who will die and treatments are not available. We are looking at this at lives at risk and we continue to do everything to accelerate the approval process...First in class...Innovative approvals are continuing to go up, ... further accelerate those pipelines and cut down those timelines.
http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2008/06/30/daily43.html
National cancer experts meet in Louisville to discuss future of cancer care
Business First of Louisville - by Ben Adkins Business First Staff Writer
A panel of national cancer experts today discussed issues surrounding the disease during a symposium entitled "Discovery to Delivery: A Public Forum about the Future of Cancer Research."
The event was co-hosted by the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center and Friends of Cancer Research, an Arlington, Va.-based non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing public education on cancer research.
The panel was composed of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell; Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Anna Barker, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute; Dr. Donald Miller, director of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center; Dr. Jason Chesney, associate director of translational research for JGBCC; Dr. Bob Mass, principal medical director for Genentech Inc., a leading biotechnology firm based in South San Francisco, Calif.; and Susan Moremen, a Louisville cancer advocate and survivor. The symposium was moderated by Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief for Health Affairs, a health policy journal.
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Not to worry. Wall Street & Big Pharma & the FDA will tell you what's good for you, depending on who is shorting whom. This is the same FDA that will let them sell fruit juice without a drop of vitamin C in it. Helloooo!
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This is the same FDA with complementary copies of the Wall Street Journal in the lobby.
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July 27, 2008 5:20 AM Updated
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Be sure to check out Alexis Glick's blog. Finally, somebody from mainstream media, has jumped in the rabbit hole. Great comments. Bob O'Brien aka The Easter Bunny hopped by.
http://glickreport.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/07/23/the-sec-battle-round-2/#comments
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The Depository and Clearing Corporation(DTCC), is responsible for settling all the trades and they are a private organization "Wall Street created a privately owned organization to clear (process the trade) and settle (deliver) it’s trades, which basically lobbied long and hard to divorce the process of collecting the money, and ensuring the share was ever delivered. And now that group claims it really can’t be responsible for this, it’s primary mission. It is just a hapless conduit."
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Correction. The SEC is governed by the Congress (when they get round to it) except that the Congress can be blackmailed into obeying the SEC.
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SEC. InvestorWords.com. Retrieved July 27, 2008, from InvestorWords.com website: http://www.investorwords.com/4417/SEC.html
SEC
Definition
Securities and Exchange Commission. The primary federal regulatory agency for the securities industry, whose responsibility is to promote full disclosure and to protect investors against fraudulent and manipulative practices in the securities markets. The securities and Exchange Commission enforces, among other acts, the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Investment Advisers Act. The supervision of dealers is delegated to the self-regulatory bodies of the exchanges. The securities and Exchange Commission is an independent, quasi-judiciary agency. It has five commissioners, each appointed for a five year term that is staggered so that one new commissioner is being replaced every year. No more than three members of the commission can be of a single political party. The securities and Exchange Commission is comprised of four basic divisions. The Division of Corporate Finance is in charge of making sure all publicly traded companies disclose the required financial information to investors. The Division of Market Regulation oversees all legislation involving brokers and brokerage firms. The Division of Investment Management regulates the mutual fund and investment advisor industries. And the Division of Enforcement enforces the securities legislation and investigates possible violations.
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Mental Gymnastics!
With the FDA, you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics if you want to figure out what it is doing.
Remember when the FDA extended Avastin's use to breast cancer? Pazdur said this:
“We wanted to have the regulatory flexibility to approve effective drugs where there isn’t overall survival,” said Dr. Richard Pazdur, who oversees cancer drugs at the F.D.A. He said the agency had sympathy for the view that delaying the progression of life-threatening disease “may be a direct clinical benefit in itself.”
Dr. Pazdur of the F.D.A. and Dr. David Schenkein, a senior vice president of Genentech, both said it was undecided whether a survival benefit would be needed to obtain full approval.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23drug.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
But when talking to Cathy Arnst recently at Businessweek, look what he said about Provenge:
On May 30, the FDA will face a nationwide protest led by CareToLive, a nonprofit advocacy group angered by the agency's rejection last year of Provenge, a controversial prostate cancer vaccine made by Dendreon (DNDN). It would have been the first new drug for prostate cancer in 20 years, and an outside panel of cancer experts chosen by the FDA recommended approval, but the agency asked for another clinical trial.
Pazdur rejects the attacks, pointing out that the FDA already allows patients access to any experimental cancer drug on a "compassionate use" basis if standard treatment options have been exhausted. The agency, he says, is routinely made a scapegoat by both patients and company executives who refuse to abandon a drug despite an obvious lack of efficacy. "Believe me, if there were a clear survival effect, the drug would be approved," says Pazdur.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_22/b4086000467675_page_2.htm
So Pazdur is publicly saying Avastin doesn't have to show survival but Provenge does. And yet, we all know Provenge has shown survival. That was the #1 reason why the FDA called for an Advisory Committee.
But why these contradictory statements? And for him and his PR people to say the Provenge decision was a science decision when Avastin was a sympathetic decision, further shows their nonsense. Why no sympathy for the men with late stage prostate cancer?
Meanwhile, look what Von Eschenbach just admitted recently at a public hearing at the Friends of Cancer Research at the University of Louisville which was shown on C-SPAN:
http://www.uoflhealthcare.org/Info/NewsMediaCenter/MediaDetail/tabid/511/Default.aspx?itemid=12
Von E said he is very appreciative of the Congressional funds and he said the agency needs a major overhaul to catch up to the science.
So if the FDA Commissioner is saying they have to catch up with the science, how would the FDA even know they could make a scientific decision on Provenge? Is that why they were depending on chemo doctors to base their decision when immuno doctors would have been the better choice?
Mike Kearney
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrHGCwWv8cc&NR=1
Victoria Principal: Don't let the FDA take away your rights!
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coming soon - prescriptions for vitamins
http://citizens.org/
Dear Supporter,
On April 17th, 2008, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) submitted a Citizen Petition calling for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reclassify all weight loss support claims for dietary supplements as disease claims.
If the FDA were to agree with this petition, American consumers would unarguably be cheated out of hundreds of legally and responsibly marketed dietary supplement products.
Click Below to Tell the FDA to Reject GSK's Petition
In the petition's summary, GSK and its co-petitioners state: "Moreover, the actions requested in this petition would help address concerns about the safety of weight loss supplements". They go on to say: "By requiring weight-loss supplements to undergo pre-market review, FDA would shift the burden to manufacturers to show that their products are safe."
Doesn't it just give you the warm and fuzzies to know that one of the largest pharmaceutical giants in the world is looking out for your safety?
Of course, they didn't seem so concerned when they pushed for over-the-counter approval for their weight loss drug, alli™, which has a history of side effects like anal leakage and has caused such serious problems as pre-cancerous lesions.
Click Below and Tell the FDA to Keep Their Hands Off Of Your Supplements
Given the solid safety record of dietary supplements sold in health-food stores - and the incredibly poor safety record of drugs foisted on the American public - it should be obvious to advocates of health freedom that this is an effort by GSK to protect the profits from one of their most lucrative products. Referring to weight loss claims for dietary supplements as "disease claims" would effectively eliminate dietary supplements that assist people in achieving body composition and weight loss goals and provide Big Pharma (including GSK) a huge windfall.
Clearly, the time to stop this is now. The FDA will eventually have to render a decision on GSK's petition so we need to make our voices heard while there is still time. While the drug companies have significant influence in Washington, there are millions of Americans that use vitamins and supplements every day, and there is tremendous clout in such numbers.
Click Below to Urge the FDA to Put the Interests of Millions of Americans
Ahead of Drug Company Profits
To read the petition, and more, and for a sample letter, click here.
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Re: Lifeextension jumps on bandwagon.Here is the article:
http://www.stopfda.org/jul2008_The-FDA-Indicts-Itself_01.htm
and don't forget the email-there are some potentially really big numbers here:
http://www.stopfda.org/
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July 28, 2008 10:30 AM
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Patrick Byrne's - Alexis Glick Fox interview this morning Video
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=971&mn=207670&pt=msg&mid=5284237
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"The little piggies are playing. ' Muriel Siebert
http://liz.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/07/23/kill-all-the-shorts
"Kill All The Shorts"
Muriel Siebert — Liz Clayman Fox Business video.
"Muriel Siebert told me yesterday I’m dead wrong. She’s a stock market maverick and the first female to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. She’s been around forever and has seen it all. In an interview on Countdown to the Closing Bell today she said the shorts must be stopped, or at least need to be forcefully slowed down. Lemme tell ya, Muriel’s a firecracker and passionate about reinstating the Short Sale Uptick Rule because, she says, rumor mongers are taking down good companies just to make a buck. The rule, which was lifted last year, said you can’t short a stock until there’s an uptick in the price. The rule prevented stocks from taking a free-fall in the wake of rumors or market whispers.
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Our Appeal is tomorrow against the FDA corrupt decision to allow men with prostate cancer to die without the benefit of Provenge. Another government agency with no transparency or oversight. Will the court allow the FDA to answer questions or protect their dark pool of deceit.
http://caretolive.com/2008-07-17/he-battle-continues-%e2%80%94-the-parties-jocky-for-position-headed-into-oral-argument/
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Where's Milken's Prostate Cancer Foundation on Provenge. The silence is deafening.
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At Milken's sentencing, Judge Kimba Wood told him: :You were willing to commit only crimes that were unlikely to be detected.... When a man of your power in the financial world... repeatedly conspires to violate, and violates, securities and tax business in order to achieve more power and wealth for himself... a significant prison term is required. Wood recommended a 10-year prison sentence, of which, in her opinion, Milken should have served at least 36 to 40 months. However, Milken hired Alan Dershowitz to help reduce his sentence. Milken served only about 22 months (from March 1991 until January 1993) before being released. Wood was picked by President Bill Clinton to be attorney general in what some called a reward for reducing Milken's sentence.
http://www.nosmut.com/Michael_Milken.html
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Part 1 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up
by RoryKearney | July 11, 2008 at 07:13 am | 3949views | 32 comment
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover
Part 2 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up
by RoryKearney | July 18, 2008 at 08:43 am | 369 views | 1 comment
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-2-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
Part 3 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
by RoryKearney | July 19, 2008 at 06:32 am | 480 views | 3 comments
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-3-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
Part 4 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
by RoryKearney | July 23, 2008 at 10:05 am | 272 views | add commenthttp://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-4-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
Part 5 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
by RoryKearney | July 24, 2008 at 10:37 am | 262 views | add comment
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/part-5-naked-shorts-75-000-cracking-wall-street-cover-redux
Truemors
Part 6 — Naked Shorts — $75,000 For Cracking the Wall Street Cover-up REDUX
Comment by Bob O'Brien
Jul 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
I love this telltale sentence:
“The SEC has affirmed on many occasions that both short selling and naked short selling are trading activities, regulated by the markets and the SEC….and has nothing to do with clearance and settlement.”
Yes, and the SEC has also said on many occasions that Reg SHO was working (as has the DTCC) when it provably was having no positive effect, and fails were growing, not shrinking. So it is documented as being, at the most charitable, deeply mistaken and incapable of analyzing simple data, and at worst, engaged in a cover-up and a habitual liar.
Also, they ARE trading strategies, in the sense that fraud is a “Business strategy” or genocide is a “population moderation strategy.”
When the rhetorical and lawyerly tap dancing comes out, you know you have the DTCC on the line. Black is white, up is down, the organization that is WHOLLY OWNED BY THE BANKS WHO ENGAGE IN THE PRACTICE is at the mike, claiming to be incapable of policing the activities of it’s owners, and yet ignoring that it is an SRO (self regulatory organization) chartered among other things with policing the activities of its member owners….well, you get the picture. Wall Street created a privately owned organization to clear (process the trade) and settle (deliver) it’s trades, which basically lobbied long and hard to divorce the process of collecting the money, and ensuring the share was ever delivered. And now that group claims it really can’t be responsible for this, it’s primary mission. It is just a hapless conduit.
The DTCC has led a campaign to both minimize the size and scope of the problem, as well as to attach anyone credible who came to the forefront to expose its dishonesty.
Now it has a problem. The SEC has clearly tipped its hand that the problem is MASSIVE (or otherwise, why would any protection from it at all be required in an emergency order?), and the NYSE has re-affirmed that by purportedly threatening not to open unless the market maker exemption was added to the measure - effectively blackmailing the SEC with having to grant immunity from the rule to the NYSE market makers responsible for creating much of the problem in the first place.
So which is it? For all the rhetoric, the SEC is behaving like a regulator scared out of its wits by systemic collapse of the financial sector, which it correctly saw aggravated, if not wholly caused, by the relentless processing of sell orders with no delivery of shares. That “trading strategy” is fraud in any other business - taking a buyer’s money, and then not delivering what was paid for. It should be scared. My research, and the research of guys like Shapiro, who have the academic and professional credentials to be taken extraordinarily seriously, indicates that this practice is pervasive, and likely impacts all stocks in the market - the question is to what degree. Any time you have the capacity to take money and then not be burdened with the cost of goods sold of delivering the product, you are creating a temptation akin to leaving the liquor cabinet open for your teenage son’s party. It’s not surprising that a rapacious Wall Street culture has correctly concluded that it can be enormously profitable to get paid without delivering the value for which it was paid.
This isn’t hard, or confusing. Guys like Stu are paid to make it all seem very confusing, so you can’t see how basically wrong the practice is. That’s theater, for which they are well compensated. Just as the tobacco industry had talking heads assuring the public that there was no conclusive linkage between cancer and smoking, the financial industry has talking heads assuring the public that they aren’t looting the public blind through fraud and collusive manipulation. One has but to step back and consider the remarkable events of the last week, to see that those with deep understanding of the problem, and with no financial incentive to perpetuate it, are blasting the alarm from the highest rooftops.
The DTCC is merely assuring the public that there is no iceberg dead ahead, and counseling the band to play on - secure in the knowledge that it has one of the few reliable lifeboats in the coming catastrophe.
How do you know that Wall Street is lying? It’s lips are moving.
Thanks for your fearless and unbiased treatment of this topic. It’s been a long time coming.