Something Hinkey this way comes

[bigbrother05]

Dear Esteemed Guest,

You may know of my battle with Wall Street. I decided to write you about it.

For five years whispers of an urban myth have held that certain hedge funds use an illegal trading technique to loot the stock market. If true, it means that the savings Americans put in the market are secretly being stolen (while Wall Street hires actors to go on TV to say how safe it is to put more of your money there), while some American firms are being destroyed. Target companies are thought to be small financial, high-tech, or biotech firms researching cures for cancer, diabetes, and other diseases.

It sounds like a Hollywood thriller, but two years ago strangers across the USA who had been wiped out financially began contacting me to ask that I get involved in this issue. I did, and became convinced something hinky was indeed going on. How bad is it? Economist and Former Undersecretary of Commerce Dr. Robert Shapiro calculates that a thousand firms have been destroyed and hundreds of billions of dollars (and perhaps a trillion) looted. If so, this “urban myth” is the financial crime of the century.

I tried to expose it quietly, but was eventually left no option but a frontal assault. The hedge funds have tried to deflect this by saying that I am just a malcontent mad about my stock price (even though I began this battle while it was soaring, and have done everything possible to expose this as a systemic issue, not just an Overstock issue). Fortunately for them, they have a stable of a half-dozen compliant reporters who obediently stick to any Party Line they are instructed to parrot (they deal mostly in half-truths, but one Wall Street Journal writer, Holman Jenkins, literally created a 100% fabricated quote).

Unfortunately for the bad guys, the US Senate Judiciary Committee just held a hearing into this issue, and their Senatorial jaws appeared to drop. SEC Chairman Cox hastily called a hearing wherein he candidly discussed the “long-standing and growing problem” of a “market manipulation that is clearly violative of the federal securities laws,” referred to the “serious problem” of Wall Street using a “tool to drive down a company's stock price to the detriment of all of its investors,” and acknowledged that the problem may be so advanced the SEC has been afraid to act for fear of “disruption to the markets.” The toady journalists have gone unusually silent.

If you want to learn more, I invite you to visit a narrated cartoon-lesson I created,http://www.businessjive.com/nss/darkside.html which explains this simply and clearly (I wrote it so Grandma could follow). Views are over 200,000 and soaring.

Your humble servant,
Patrick M. Byrne
Overstock.com

P.S. If you want to see a 3 minute TV news story exposing this scandal, click here then click “Video”. http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=388415&nid=148

Let me know if the links don't work, I'll try to fix it.

[dipsydoodle]

1. No link

?

[geckosfeet]

2. Wow. Thanks.

What do you do professionally - are you a lawyer or stock analyst or a blend thereof?

Need a working link though please,,,,,,,,

OK - remove comma.

[meegbear]

3. Remove the comma at the end of the link

[Virginia Dare]

4. Hinkey indeed...

and I was just reading yesterday that Carlyle Group would start investing in Hedge Funds. The amount of money that is being extorted and downright stolen in this world right now is mind boggling. How many people are actually involved in this scam?

[donsu]

5. thank you for your important work of exposing these criminals

nt

[bananas]

6. 2 more votes will put this on the greatest page

If this can be kept visible for another day, there could be some interesting comments.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Would not suprirse me at all.

There is so much arrogance in Wall Street and the New York suburbs are full of Republicans who feel the world owes them a lifestyle. If you never have met one, you are truly missing the great entitled class of the 20th and 21st century.

[progressoid]

8. Marking this for a later read

[On the Road]

9. I Don't Understand the Scandal

Shorting a stock means you promise to sell it at a future time for a certain price. There is no requirement to own it -- otherwise, no one could ever take a short position. You are just promising to buy it at a future point in order to close the position. Naked shorting is extremely risky, since it's impossible to lose more than the initial investment if the stock rises. But in and of itself, it's not a scandal.

The descriptions are so dumbed-down it's impossible to tell what is either illegal or immoral about the practice they're describing

Now, there are things could be illegal -- brokerages manipulating individual stocks, not being honest with their clients (eg, pump and dump), not having required collateral, etc. But these articles need to be more specific.

[Pale Blue Dot]

10. HUGE kick and recommendation. I URGE everyone to watch it.

I just finished watching the presentation, and it is a reasonable, well-researched, informative look at how, for lack of a better way to put it, we're all doomed.


I've held for a long time that our economy is running on smoke and mirrorsin a way that is not sustainable. This presentation shows a part of that puzzle.

If it's not too late already, we must begin to understand the problem and act on it NOW!

[Pale Blue Dot]

11. Kick.

This is important.

[Pale Blue Dot]

13. One final kick.

I hope as many people see this as possible.

[bananas]

14. I'll give it one more kick. nt

[Fovea]

12. This was powerful and well crafted.

I am copying all my friends in on this.

[bigbrother05]

15. Thanks to everyone

Thought that Mr. Byrne touched on an important issue.

[annabanana]

16. I'm kicking this back upfront because

I missed it first time around, and I'm always here!