NOTE

I’ve updated and added links to this page several times.

Many of the links are to stock message-boards, rather than to mainstream articles, because I believe the discussion around these articles is just as important as the original articles and because the story of the financial scandal first broke on threads like these, not in the mainstream.

I’ve noted some of my changes and the time when I made them, but not all, because the piece becomes almost unreadable with so many notes and corrections added.

Suffice to say, it’s a work in progress and I will continue to add new information and links as I see fit.

Update, June 5, 2012:

I have made this blog public again, simply because I’d like the factual record of what happened to trump the lies about me plastered everywhere. Also, it seems, each time I disappear for a while, my name gets dropped off citations from the book.

To be specific, Jeffrey Tucker’s review of “Mobs” at Laissez-Faire Books, in March 2012, reposted at the Daily Reckoning in September in uncorrected form, turned me into an “editor” of the book and cited my lines as Bonner’s, even though my co-authorship is quite clear from the title, copyright, and dozens of reviews and articles. Here is the corrected essay, with my comment below deleted. it was there until late this year.

This”mistake” can be explained quite easily.

Mr. Tucker, formerly a senior scholar at Mises, is a friend of Mr. N. Stephan Kinsella.

Mr. Kinsella is anti-IP.  For some reason, he attacked me last year on his blog, for some rather mild criticism I made of the anti-IP position on my blog. I did not respond, although someone using my name then posted on his blog.

I asked Mr. Kinsella privately to remove the post, explaining that this kind of thing had been going on ever since my departure from Agora.  He did so, although he ignored my request to give me the IP address of the person who’d posted.

I suspect that Mr. Wiggin (chief of Agora Financial) or someone acting for him/for his company might have seen a ripe opportunity to broaden his campaign against me and may have given his version of  my interactions with Agora to him and his friends.

This is the usual strategy by which someone who treads on powerful toes is quickly discredited, black-listed, and made vulnerable by isolation. Still,  I should say the evidence I have is only circumstantial and I could be mistaken. If so, I sincerely apologize and welcome any correction or criticism of any errors.

Mr. Wiggin and Co. (that is, Agora Financial and its parent/partner, Agora Inc.) have now solidified their grip on libertarian circles in the West, by buying Laissez-Faire Books, which now appears to employ several Independent Institute scholars as associates, including Ms. Wendy  McElroy and Mr. Jeffrey Tucker.  Both are anti-IP.

I cannot think that Mr. Tucker decided to turn a co-author into an editor for any reasons of his own.  In any case,  in a comment on his post at the website of LFB (which they recently deleted after letting it stand for a month), I thanked him for his review and corrected his mistake firmly but jokingly, asking how he would feel if he were called a proof-reader instead of an editor. My comment was long, reasonable, and polite, if a bit droll and sarcastic.  A little bit of sarcasm is surely warranted under the circumstances.

The next day he had improved his description. He now described me as having made co-authored contributions to the book.

[No criticism of Mr. Bonner is intended by this. He is a popular and talented writer and well-respected blogger. ]

Anyway, I left it at that. And the comment stood for about a month or two before being  taken down [Sept 1, 2012: I noticed a few weeks ago that the comment had been added back again. This is the kind of thing that Mr. Wiggin and his marketing team were doing in 2007, when I would ask for a correction. They would make it and then change it back. If I complained, I would first look like I was telling a falsehood. If I didn’t complain, they would get away with their distortions.

I also just noticed an email from Mr. Tucker, saying there was no need for me to take the tone I did. I wanted to reply because I don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially if, against all odds,  it was simply a mistake, but I decided against it because of  the prevalence of  IP harvesting among marketers like Agora.  Frankly, given the extent of the subtle harassment I experienced during and following my interactions with them,  my comments were the soul of restraint.

[Since this update, I have had some civil exchanges with Mr. Tucker, who said he’d have the erring review, now republished in uncorrected form at the DR, corrected. So far [Sept. 21], I haven’t noticed any changes, but I’m always hopeful.  He has written me a second time, offering to help change the mistake.  I much appreciate his courtesy and hope he gets through to the offenders…]

[July 7: I notice this morning that my post of an image of Lady Liberty weeping had been altered. From one image there were three on the post this morning. Checking my blog, I only see updates from July 4.  This happened a day or two after I made this page visible again, after taking it off for while in June, it happened immediately after adding material about the LFB reviews.]

Anyone else would have thrown a multimillion dollar lawsuit at them. And won.

I didn’t because I felt they promoted views that needed to be heard. And because defending myself would have entailed injuring some innocent parties.

Meanwhile,  although I can’t go into this too much at this point, I still keep experiencing what I can only call electronic harassment.  I have a fair idea of how it’s being done, and there’s little I can do to stop it, given the nature of power in the United States today.

I’m not alone in this.

Others (whistle-blowers and journalists usually) have been subjected to identical treatment.  It is illegal, even under current US law, but of course if your foes include people with enormous business and media clout, as well as multiple intelligence connections, it would be foolish to fight them.

The best one can do is document what happens.

Update Sept. 6, 2012

http://mindbodypolitic.org/2012/09/06/more-ip-shenanigans/

Update, November, 2011 (in progress)

Since Agora Inc. is now a central part of the libertarian world and the debates about the budget, I am adding this brief summary of their ties to the political world, for anyone interested:

Libels About Me Repeated By Tony Ryals Since 2007

1. I am a penny stock “fraudster”

1. False. The truth is I have never sold a stock or a penny-stock ever. Any investment advice I ever gave professionally can be found in notes in the Daily Reckoning that can be found below. I edited the Daily Reckoning column, did some real estate research (looking for property that Mr. Bonner might be interested in purchasing). researched real estate and market conditions, and wrote ONE investment report on Goldman Sachs (which led to this article in Money Week).

Most of my time was spent on writing and editing “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.” I was hired for 4 hours PT work in January 2007 and signed a book contract the following summer (May 2007).

Do you really think that I could have found time to tout stocks when I was editing 4 hours per day, researching and co-writing the book (that was originally 1000 pages before it was cut down).

All in exactly one year flat, while writing my own articles, traveling around the world with a laptop, house-hunting for myself and doing my own (very small-time) trading? There are not enough hours in the day for me to have been touting stocks or running any newsletter, with all that.

Ryals is fabricating this out of whole cloth.

2. I have a George Tenet connection.

2. False. I have never met, spoken to, or even seen George Tenet in my life. I don’t think I’ve even read or written much about him. Senior people at Agora Inc. might know him. How does it follow that I know him? Bogus, rubbish. I was at Agora from January 2006 – October 2007 and wrote the book from May 2006 – August 2007. In other words, I was there solely for the purpose of writing, not selling stocks and that is a documented fact.

3. I am an illegal alien.

3. False. I’m an American citizen and have been one for over 15 years. My money is earned and spent in this country. My education dollars were spent here. My relatives live here. Ryals has a lot of nerve to use this term, since he doesn’t live here anymore nor has he apparently done anything for the country for the last several years, except attack companies on stock-boards, while dragging his personal antipathies into third-hand political diatribes hatched at long distance in that famous haven of progressive sentiment and judicial probity, Guatemala.

Interestingly, Ryals who speaks with so much contempt of illegal aliens (something most genuinely liberal folks would never do), seems to have been living in Guatemala for over 15 years without ridding himself of all the sense of entitlement and arrogance that birth in the American empire apparently confers on so many people. Thus, his professed sympathy for the third world and its people is simply a mask for his own resentment.

4. I “posed” as a far-left progressive when writing “The Language of Empire” and then revealed myself as a far-right extremist in my second book.

4. False. Anyone who’s read my first book will see it is far from being the work of a “bleeding-heart” leftist or a diatribe against America, not withstanding the blurbs (collected by my publisher) from left-wing writers.

It is in fact quite scholarly and even-handed and is most concerned with mass-control techniques used by the state. It was actually intended to be a college text, which it is.

[Further note: And if I were a leftist, I would not be ashamed of it. Left and right are simply points of view. Like many people, I’m on the left on some things. On others, I’m on the right. I dislike rigid ideological divisions and in both my books I’ve described such divisions as a technique of state control. Apparently, Ryals lacks the ability to distinguish that considered position from opportunism. My positions on the police state, on imperial wars, on torture, and on financial crime have stayed much the same since I began writing. I have repeatedly expressed my differences from standard left-wing sites like Counterpunch, as well as from standard right-wing libertarian sites like Cato, and even from Lew Rockwell].

The writing closest to my thinking comes from the Independent Institute.

For example, I have openly criticized the more controversial writing on LRC, by Walter Block, Herman Hoppe, and Stephan Kinsella. To be clear, my gripe with them was over their reasoning, and not because I think they are “extremist.” The word “extremism” – often applied to these writers – has become a propaganda term. I couldn’t care less how “extreme” they are. I do care that they don’t seem to reason all that closely, at least in the pieces of theirs I’ve read.

[Note: I understand Block is considered “Mr. Libertarian” and Mr. Hoppe is also accorded a very high status as an Austrian thinker, so my remarks might seem impertinent to some people. They are not meant to be. It has been several years since I first read them, and I have held off saying anything about them until recently.]

5. I am paid by Agora Inc. to write my blog.

5. False. My contract on the book was with John Wiley and the only thing Agora Inc. paid for was my editorial and research/PR work for Mr. Bonner, while I was writing the book. I stopped being paid by them shortly after the book was published. I was mostly out of the country while the book was being written. I have never been paid by Agora to write anything since the book came out.

[Correction: since November 2011, two months after the book came out].

Take a look at what’s on my blog. Do you think any company in the mainstream financial world would pay me to write the kind of stuff I do?

6. My boss was James Dale Davidson, notorious for front-running stocks and promoting the “Vince Foster was murdered” theory.

6. False. My bosses were Addison Wiggin and then Bill Bonner. I barely interacted with anyone else, besides a few administrators. I had no problems with the latter, for the most part, but several with the former, which is why I left.

(June 5 2012: Correction: I did have problems with Mr. Bonner, after the manuscript was done and when promotion began. Those problems had to do with his not keeping his word to me about citing me correctly and giving me joint attribution on the DR.  He blamed his inability to do that on Mr. Wiggin.

Mr. Wiggin of course told me that it was Bonner who was dropping my name.

I came to the conclusion finally that they were simply colluding to keep me confused, possibly as a way to foil any legal action I might take. They needn’t have worried. As I repeatedly told Mr. Bonner, any outfit that could publicly post the kinds of things they did about me over a misunderstanding that I always tried to work out peacefully, was not one I wanted to tangle with.

Then,  after having waited months to get the paperwork, I was suddenly told to sign a foreign rights contract giving the publisher leeway to drop all credit to me.

They waited to do this when I was traveling abroad and had no access to a lawyer.  It was at that point I also learned that Mr. Bonner was not the CEO of the company, as he’d told me. This came as a bit of a shock to me, although it explained why Mr. Wiggin seemed to enjoy more power over Agora Financial than the description “PR guy” would warrant.

I later found that the CEO was someone called Mr. Myles Norin).

(Original Post) It was a matter of pure professional rivalry on the part of Mr. Wiggin.

(June 5, 2012: Correction: I should add that this rivalry was abetted by Mr. Bonner’s unwillingness – or inability –  to provide any clarity or feedback in any of his professional interactions. This seems to have stemmed both from a psychological inability to express his intentions plainly, as well as from ideology (it is a tenet of his brand of libertarianism that any kind of guidance or rule-following is one step away from Buchenwald). I also think it was just their way of doing business (a “no rules, no paper” atmosphere after all makes it easier for the more powerful to get their way at the expense of the less powerful, encourages money-makers on the team to bend the rules to make money, while simultaneously offering plausible deniability to management should any liability be incurred in the chaltha-hai atmosphere.

Both Mr. Wiggin and Mr. Bonner perpetually undercut each others’ achievements in subtle ways (although always quick to join hands and sing kumbaya if anyone outside their mafia noted this) and  and my hiring only exacerbated that conflict, redirecting some of the fire against me.   I blame that partly on ideology – specifically, a linguistically unsophisticated libertarianism that seems to have been developed by some mid-century American financial newsletter writers.

In any case, Mr. Wiggin’s fears turned out to be quite misplaced, since I had no intention of competing with anyone there.

I also had grave misgivings about the project from the start (which I unfortunately set aside), was uncomfortable with the way the place operated, and to this day regret the association.

(Had I worked with ordinary employees I doubt this would have been the case.

I think the problem was that I was seen by people who didn’t know me  as someone picked off the street and foisted on the DR team, even though it was Dan Denning who forwarded my writing to Mr. Bonner, Bonner who invited me to work there, and Mr. Wiggin who hired me (with several complimentary comments to his boss).

In fact, Mr. Bonner hired me specifically to have someone outside the DR who would promote him and be loyal directly to him, he told me, rather than to Mr. Wiggin.

He wanted me to send out opeds for him, on my own. It was I who told him it would be impossible for me to do it, since he already had a team doing that at Agora Financial. He didn’t really understand or know how the business operated and it was quickly apparent to me. So I asked Mr. Wiggin about why he might have wanted to do that.

Mr. Wiggin explained that the two of them had had a falling out while Empire of Debt was coming out (2005).

Apparently, Mr. Bonner had short-changed Mr. Wiggin on credit for Financial Reckoning Day, their first collaborative effort. As soon as the book was published,  and despite a huge amount of work from Mr. Wiggin and Ms. Incontrera (his assistant), Mr. Bonner had consistently appropriated the book as his solo effort. The first edition of the FRD did not give copyright to Mr. Wiggin and neither did the first edition of EOD. To forestall the same appropriation of EOD, Mr. Wiggin told me he had put less work into the book. Mr Bonner told me that he (Bonner) had written most of the book. He said Wiggin and he had written equal amounts on the first book (FRD).

Mr. Bonner apparently thought Mr. Wigger was a clunky writer and not equal to him in ability. Each time he asked him to rewrite,  Mr. Wiggin would just take the cut portion and use it for his own manuscript, “Demise of the Dollar,” which he was writing at the same time, unknown to his boss.

That’s why Demise is kind of thin as a book.

When EOD came out, voila, Mr.  Wiggin had a third book out and since he certainly knows how to handle the PR machine at Agora, he was able to push both books to best-seller status, thereby one upping Mr. Bonner.

That was the reason why Mr. Bonner was eager to get out another book of his own, so he too would have three books out.  When someone spotted my writing and he noticed that I was a former subscriber to one of his newsletters and an Indian to boot (he was opening an office in India around that time), he thought he could get out another book, where he would have more control, since he’d hired me.

I sensed all this and heard both sides of the story from the two, but I tried to stay out of the conflict. In fact, it was only in 2006, a year later, when Mr. Bonner asked me why Mr. Wiggin might have one-upped him over EOD that I told him what Mr. Wiggin had told me when I was first hired. I told him the crew felt unappreciated and that he wasn’t aware of how much work went into his books. He seemed genuinely puzzled and considered himself the injured party.

Mr. Bonner was all courtesy and consideration until the manuscript was signed and then every promise went out the door….and it would have stayed out the door if I had not started cc’ing some lawyer acquaintances.

[On rereading this I think this is bit unfair to Mr. Bonner, because I recall he did ask for me to be correctly attributed, but it was only after I requested it. This was completely different from our agreement, when he told he “wanted me to get all the publicity,”  as he didn’t like PR work and preferred to keep a low profile.

We discussed at length prior to signing the contract what my status would be and I would never have done the work I did, or contributed the original material and ideas, if I was not going to get credit as author, rather than ghosting.] – Sept. 10.

After that, they – whoever they are – “outsourced” the business of harassing me to one of their employees (now a former employee, apparently), an uncouth envious person who poses as a “libertarian,” but actually seems to be something dredged up from the swamps of the Everglades  – one of those patriots whose patriotism runs to key-hole peeping on women he knows nothing about, threats, vile emails,  and lewd comments.

[Sept 1, 2012: I believe this monitoring began well before I left and included illegally monitoring my computer (which is mine, not the company’s), accessing my personal accounts and emails between me and others, which had nothing to do with my work at Agora. Even my emails to Agora personnel should have been out of bounds, because I was not a  full-time employee and there was no reason for such monitoring when it was I who had been at the receiving end of unprofessional behavior, both from  Mr. Wiggin and to a lesser extent, Mr. Bonner.

To give Mr. Bonner his due, he was apparently aware he had caused a lot of confusion and did apologize several times, verbally and in writing.

In his interview with me Mr. Wiggin had expressed some antagonism/resentment toward those he perceived closer to Mr. Bonner in the Agora “family” (Casey, Stansberry),  and he was terrified in case I should tell Mr. Bonner.

In fact, I did no such thing, thinking the whole matter trivial and jejeune, until I realized to what lengths the plotting and scheming were being taken, how much rivalry existed between these supposed allies, and to what lengths they were prepared to go to discredit others and deflect from their own unethical actions.

In January 2011, someone from among this crew, or someone acting on behalf of them, posted a vicious personal attack on me, calling me a “whore”, “pig”, “cocaine addict,” and an “untouchable.” I need hardly say that there was no substance to any of these attacks, any more than there is to the charges of stock fraud posted by Ryals.

It’s all bogus and thrown out in the hope that some will stick, because people like to believe the worst of others, whether there’s proof or not.

The post also called my 80 year old mother in India and my dead grandmother as “untouchables” – which is like calling them “niggers” – not that my mother blinked an eye at it. She simply said she wasn’t insulted to be called an “untouchable,” because it only meant no one could touch her, which was a good thing.

But her generosity doesn’t excuse the scurrility of the attack.

The nasty post stayed up for more than a month, and only when I threatened a libel suit was it removed.

That first libel stayed up with no apology from anyone, for several years.

Mr. Bonner was well aware of it  but his recent apology came only after the government issued a subpoena, or so I’m told, as part of an investigation of one of Agora’s subsidiaries. I assume Mr. Bonner apologized in the hope that that would stop me from adding my voice to those ex-employees (highly regarded ones, I might add), whose complaints had brought on the subpoena.

Again, he needn’t have worried.

I suspect that many job applications and writing projects were actively sabotaged…how and by whom exactly, I’m not sure.

But I digress….

All this was going on while from November 2007 onward I was also being trashed all over the net, with wild accusations by this Tony Ryals character. Not a week would go by without some fresh posting, each worse and more slanderous, and all destroying the credibility I had carefully built up as an activist by years of research and writing, often far ahead of the crowd.

In any case, it was a delicious irony to find that it was one of their own, one of their stars, in fact, who complained about one of their traders and attracted the attention of the government.

Anyway….

Davidson had been  bought out of Agora Inc. by the time I was (Dec 2005- Jan 2006), so neither directly nor indirectly was he ever a supervisor or boss in any way, shape, or form. I have never corresponded with him or seen him.

In fact, I first heard of him from Ryals who, when I was hired, asked me to ask if he was still there. I did and was told he wasn’t. If that is not the case, I can hardly be blamed for it.

This is Ryals’ broad-brush smear-by-numbers technique. He hates Mr. Davidson, because he (Ryals) claims he bought Endovasc on the recommendation of Mr. Davidson and lost his inheritance in it. Therefore, anyone even remotely associated with Agora, which Mr. Davidson originally formed, must be equally hate-worthy.

What’s more, if you read up a bit on Endovasc and Ryals’ investment in it, you’ll find that Ryals accusations against Davidson, at least in the matter of Endovasc, are ill-founded or confused.

One businessman who analyzed the story came to the conclusion that Ryals lost his money through his own foolishness and that Endovasc was done to death by naked short-selling and not pump-and-dump.

Be that as it may ( I don’t have the knowledge to judge), if you throw your entire inheritance into a get-rich-quick scheme of some kind (what else is dumping money into a biotech stock in hopes of a quick surge in price?), you share at least fifty percent of the responsibility if you lose it.

Instead of wising up, Ryals then starts putting together two and two from various half-digested articles by legitimate financial journalists and comes up with eleven thousand-and-one:

Google, Charles Schwab, Davidson, Wikipedia, LOM, Lord Rees-Mogg, Lila Rajiva, James Angel, Patrick Byrne, Brent Baker, Raging Bull, David Marchant, Walter Block, Ron Paul, the Pentagon shooter, the crotch-bomber, Christopher Cox, Asra Nomani, Gordon Duff, Sibel Edmonds, Alex Jones, Lew Rockwell, Bill Bonner, Judd Bagley, Michael Zwebner, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Gary Weiss’ wife, James Quinn, Bud Burrell, J. Christoph Amberger, Mark Mitchell, the Stasi, RAW, William Colby, the SEC, Canadian regulators, the Malaysian stock exchange and a further cast of thousands, have all been conspiring to defraud him..and other petty investors…through an elaborate CIA-run penny-stock operation that’s concealed by a fiendishly clever smoke-screen about naked-shorting by the big banks.

As a matter of fact, some of the names above (like LOM) are indeed connected to fraud.

(See Patrick Byrne’s site, Deep Capture, as well as David Marchant’s Off-Shore Alert and Lucy Komisar’s investigations at The Komisar Scoop.I have discussed these issues with the first two).

But not the way Ryals spins it.

The CIA does in fact finance technology penny-stocks and partner with venture capital. And does indeed launder money through the stock-market. But Ryals is simply botching the analysis of it for his own purposes.

As for Agora, I don’t know what to make of any of it. It certainly pushes the envelope in its marketing and hosts a few analysts who can best be described as touts. A lot of the material it retails is second-hand or hyped. Its version of libertarianism can sometimes  be crass, although to what extent that undermines their libertarian positions I can’t tell.

[Nove 25/26: Daily Crux has run a piece referring to billionaire statist George Soros, which is linked prominently on the Daily Reckoning, so, even if Agora is a Soros/Rothschild front, they don’t seem to  support positions consistent with that role.

On the other hand, the operative word for a front is “covert”, not overt, so they could have been used as a conduit for disinformation, without their knowledge.

But that could be true of any number of outfits or writers, including me. I’ve supported some writers in the past, whom I’ve now come to think are disingenuous. That is simply a matter of learning more information or making connections you didn’t spot before.]

Most people are often more naive than we imagine, as Dostoevsky once said.

Whatever the truth about Agora, it’s not my place to find it.

And whether the strangeness translates into “Rothschild front,” as Bill Engdahl has alleged, is also something I don’t feel I can really address. I leave that task to insiders better qualified to judge.

7. I am “covering up” for Agora, Byrne, the government, the CIA, etc. in some way.

7. False. Actually, Ryals’ knowledge about Goldcor and several other matters is is taken from my site. Apparently, despite obsessing about Agora from 2002 onward (some nine years of non-stop fixation), he was unable to do the simple research that would have pulled up the information.

My interest was less in Goldcor as it was in Goldcor’s Florida connection, an issue that wouldn’t even have come into the ambit of my blogging had it not coincided with the Madoff story, as well as elements of the 9-11 story.

I did not feel that I was the appropriate person to follow up on that story, precisely because I AM an immigrant and NOT related to intelligence. Any sane person would realize that an immigrant cannot write exposes about national security-related issues (such as mega fraud involving the major banks and regulators) in their adopted country without running significant professional and personal risks.

Aside from anything else, they would lack credibility and become vulnerable to accusations of spying or propagandizing themselves.

Even now, you will notice Ryals continues to try to pin Goldcor on Bonner and Davidson, whereas it was pumped by the publisher Joel Nadel, about whom Ryals has nothing to say.

Nor has Ryals anything to say about Agora editors and stock promoters, who actually DO have strong ties to the financial media and to Wall Street, and who actually ARE responsible for Agora’s marketing and stock selling, unlike the various libertarian bystanders whom Ryals slanders.

Very suggestive, especially since Ryals’ blogs shows evidence of ongoing contacts with the financial media. I would not be the first person to begin to suspect that some one associated with Agora, or knowledgable about it, might be feeding Ryals misleading information, in an effort to divert suspicion in the wrong direction. I hasten to add that that is merely a hypothesis suggested by a reputable journalist who knows the story in detail.

I noticed more than one phrase from my emails, as well as personal information, showing up the next day in posts by some writers there, and, once, in the blogging of the bizarre Ryals. Whether these things are intended as subtle threats directed at me, or are evidence of advanced paranoia on my part, or some extraordinary coincidence generated by planetary energies is anyone’s guess.

8. I delete posts on my blog to cover up for people.

8. False. In the first place, I don’t usually delete posts. I might modify them or make them private, if I think circumstances warrant it. That is well within my rights. What circumstances? Well, if I feel someone, say a cyber-stalking poseur in Guatemala, is using my own writing to trash and flame me, for instance. Why on earth should I be obliged to arm my detractors with my own hard-won insights so they can be turned against me for no other reason but malice?

9. I “invited” Ryals to come down to Agora’s office in Baltimore.

9. Another flat lie. I was NOT employed at Agora at the time I wrote to Ryals, so I could scarcely invite him there. I don’t believe I was even in Baltimore at the time.

Here are the SUM TOTAL (5 ) of my emails to him. I challenge him to publish any email from me where I invite him to Baltimore in 2005. He has intentionally confused something from someone else’s email with mine and blamed it on me, out of sheer malice.

The first email (see below) asks about his allegations on the web. I hadn’t yet been hired by Agora and I was worried about the allegations I’d read on the web and how it might affect my credibility, especially since I was blogging about finance by that time (see “Playing Monopoly in Charm City” June 2005, Dissident Voice).

IN ORDER OF WRITING, MY EMAILS TO RYALS:

(All my emails were published without my permission by Ryals, without any attempt to straighten out any of his misconceptions before hand. I challenge Ryals to produce ANY email where I have invited him to Baltimore).

Note: Because many of the links Ryals pastes into his sites are links from reputable journalists, they do contain many interesting facts that warrant exploration. However, Ryals’ explanations of them are completely irresponsible, even insane.

Example: Gordon Duff volunteers casually that he has “had George Tenet on speed-dial for some years,” and that becomes “Duff is a CIA agent.” [Note: Duff has been in military intelligence, and that fact is published prominently on his site, which is clearly and explicitly affiliated with the military, so I fail to see why Ryals’ is implying some kind of subterranean agenda. He’s a military guy. Of course, he has intelligence connections.{

I worked at Agora while writing the book, so I must be CIA too.

How I can be CIA AND an illegal alien AND on Agora’s payroll AND a stock-broker, he fails to explain.

1. October 21, 2005

—– Original Message —–
From: “Lila Rajiva”
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:25:56 +0000

> Dear Mr. Ryall,
>
> I read with interest your articles on the net regarding Agora
> Publishing and the stock ventures of the founder, James Dale
> Davidson. However, I was led to believe that Bill Bonner a
> well-known copywriter and author is the founder. Can you please
> clarify this as I have had some dealings with the latter gentleman
> and am concerned about such connections. Could it be that you are
> mistaken in your accusations?
>
> Sincerely
> Lila Rajiva

EMAIL TWO:

October 27, 2005

From: “Lila Rajiva”
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 02:19:44 +0000

>> Dear Mr. Ryals,
>
> I did speak to Mr. Bonner about Porter Stansberry. He was very
> forthcoming and adhered to the position that he was not guilty of
> any legal wrong doing, such as pump and dump.
>
> He seemed a very open and sincere individual so I am a bit puzzled.
> It’s quite possible that some of his associates are involved in
> things he is not aware of.
>
> Or that they were only inexperienced or needlessly zealous, which
> was unfortunate, but may not be illegal.
>
> Do let me know if you come across anything else.
>
> Lila Rajiva
>

EMAIL THREE

October 27, 2011:

From: “Lila Rajiva”
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:17:44 +0000
> Mr. Ryals,
>
> I’ll keep this in mind. Thanks.
>
> Regards.
> Lila Rajiva

EMAIL FOUR

October 28, 2011:

From: “Lila Rajiva”
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:32:52 +0000

> Dear Mr. Ryals:
>
> Thank you for all this information. I will certainly keep it in
> mind. I plan to work for Mr. Bonner only in a limited way and with
> nothing to do with his stock activities or selling. I am a writer
> and and planning on working on a book with him that has nothing to
> do with finances.
>
> I appreciate this information and do thank you for it. But I am not
> in a position to ascertain the truth of it and don’t have the time
> as well. I hope that you will be able to recoup your losses. I
> sincerely feel for you about that as I suffered similar losses
> through unscrupulous individuals.
>
> Kind regards
> Lila Rajiva

To be clear, I don’t know Porter Stansberry and have never met him. I have not even subscribed to his newsletter. At one time, I subscribed to True Wealth (written by Steve Sjuggerud), and I found it quite useful and reasonably priced. I have seen Stansberry once, at a work conference. I have never spoken or corresponded with him, and he worked in a completely different division. I’ve also subscribed to a letter by James Boric, which was informative and very low-key. Among their analysts, I have thought well of Boric, Dan Denning, Sjuggerud, Kevin Kerr, Chuck Butler, and Christoph Amberger, among others. I thought they were honorable people.

Back to the story. I was hired at Agora between November, 2005 and January, 2006.

During that time, I was also traveling and promoting my first book and working on an article for another book (“One of the Guys,” Seal Press). I was also getting ready to go abroad.

In fact, I was out of the country for most of 2006. That too is well-documented, from official and personal records.

What could I have to do with whatever was going on in Baltimore that year? Nothing.

More sliming by Ryals.

In 2007, after difficulties over promotion and attribution of the book which was released in 2007, I decided to leave. By that time, I’d had to research dozens of pieces to find out who wrote what in the Daily Reckoning columns, some of which were used for Mr. Bonner’s part of the book. That led to research into previous Agora books. The company’s somewhat loose attitude toward attribution and ongoing changes in copyright. For instance, Wiggin originally didn’t have copyright to Empire of Debt and Financial Reckoning Day, but soon after he found out that I’d got copyright, the copyrights to those two books were changed to include him).

Added, June 5, 2012. I notice that the first editions of the two books are no longer being advertised on Amazon, as they were until very recently. So you can’t check inside to see the original copyright notice. But you can still find the original editions in print and look it up.

This had me worried that I might have incorporated material that was actually written by some previous co-author who hadn’t been fully attributed.

Going back into Agora’s history, I then saw some articles and statements showing that Mr. Davidson had been involved as recently as 2004.

This led me to think about what Tony Ryals had written to me about Davidson. So I dropped a note to him in 2007. At that point, seeing my book and my pieces in support of Ron Paul, Ryals flew into a rage and started attacking me as a “stock fraud,” “con artist,” and “bimbo,” all over the web, even though I wrote back to him at length explaining that I’d never written any newsletters there or sold stocks, beyond a few investment notes that you can read below. He must have sent a dozen vulgar emails just to my blog. I still have a few of them. He then went all over the web, calling me a stock fraud, for no other reason than that I’d written the book with Bonner.

The only investment report I wrote was one in 2006, for Money Week, recommending that people sell Goldman Sachs. That was the prototype of all the fashionable “Short Goldman” political and financial columns being tossed around today. Writing that in 2006 was a whole different ball game.

[To give credit where it’s due, it was not my idea to turn the Goldman research into an investment report. I was actually researching Goldman for “Mobs,” when I was in Argentina. I mentioned this to Mr. Bonner, who was also suspicious of Goldman’s trading success. Around that time, Mr. Bonner was also trying to get me to do more interesting work than editing and he suggested I write up my research as an investment report on Goldman Sachs. This I did and a part of it was published as a cover story by Agora affiliate/subsidiary, Money Week, a prestigious English business magazine. Later, the report was sold through another newsletter, under Wiggin’s assistant’s name without my permission.]

Apparently, the assignment sparked off resentment against me in the company so that for most of 2006-07, some individuals there were intent on defaming me, undermining my work, or otherwise making it difficult for me to continue. Nonetheless, I was offered a position, which I refused, and Mr. Bonner did write me a good testimonial, although I didn’t use it.

Let me be clear. I no longer feel a need to revisit this issue.

The only reason I do it is because of the malicious lies Ryals keeps publishing about me at every turn, with the clear intention of smearing me by association. He has also, apparently, posted under my name on a libertarian blog.

As I mentioned before, Mr. Bonner did apologize for what happened in 2007 and a few months ago wrote me an apology about a recent attribution issue.

For me, this is enough.

The case is closed.

EMAIL FIVE (AFTER I LEFT AGORA IN 2007)

Re: BFI Consulting,Mark Skousen,Lila Rajiva

By Lila Rajiva on 1/30/2008 1:20:04 PM

E-mail: Lila Rajiva

Hi Tony,

Yes I did say I wouldn’t be involved in Agora’s stock selling in 2005. And guess, what. It’s 2008 and I haven’t been. I have never sold a single stock for them. As for Jim Davidson, I believe his association with Agora has been terminated for some years and no one there defends him. The investment advice that I’ve read in the Agora newsletters that I’ve followed has been basically useful – and provided at very reasonable terms. Too bad I haven’t always followed it.

Do I have a problem with some of their “hard sell” language? Yes, I do. And I expressed it to several people there quite vociferously and incessantly. I think some of them became quite bored and annoyed with
me over it. But not all of their advisories use those tactics. Many are quite low-key and all of them do give you your money back.

In any case, the company is very free-wheeling and there are lots of very different people doing very different things. I decided at the time that it was unfair to tar everyone with the mistakes of a few and chose to work on Mr. Bonner’s Daily Reckoning column as an idea person, research assistant, and editor from late
2005- mid 2007. And to write a book with him.

I decided that the good of bringing some political home truths to people in the influential financial world far outweighed the bad of possibly having people like yourself leap to wrong conclusions. In an important election year, that was actually a no-brainer for me.

How is that wrong?

In 2005, when Mr. Bonner approached me about the book, he did indeed intend it to be a pop sociology book and not financial. And most of the book, even in its finished version, is about politics and history.
We added a financial and investment section later mainly because the publisher needed that to sell the book, since finance is the field where Mr. Bonner is best-known.
Besides, the investment advice Mr. Bonner gave in the book was extremely general. Not was it necessarily what I think. In a joint effort, it’s not possible to always agree on all things. I think I mention that in the preface to the book.
Funny thing is if you had followed his advice over the last couple of
years, you’d have doubled your money…

FYI, here’s an account of how the book was written:

www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/11/23/stories/2007112350660900.htm

As for my qualifications, you’re wrong there too. I have an undergraduate degree in economics and history and did graduate work in International Relations (MA)- where I read a healthy quantity of
economics. I currently contribute to the whackonomics column of the Hindu, which, if you’ve ever read it, answers questions on finance and economics from people in the field. I have also studied the market and
trading on my own for seven years. I think I can hold my own in understanding how finance works in the real world. In any case, if you read our book, you will see a large part of it is a debunking of the notion of economics as a science like physics. We think a knowledge of history and human psychology is more important. Since I have graduate training in history, politics, and philosophy, I’m pretty well
qualified I think.
By the way, the year before I wrote the book about Abu Ghraib, I was making (trying to make) my living as a swing trader…so my interest in finance is quite long standing and preceded my social activism. I
see no conflict between the two, actually.
On your other accusations:

I was invited to speak at BFI Consulting’s conference to promote “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.” I wasn’t going to talk about investments but about how governments destroy savings. Had I chosen to speak about
anything to do with investment, it would have been about the global real estate market, which I know quite well.
As for Dr.Mark Skousen, I have never met him personally, but he was kind enough to blurb our book and point out errors in the MS. I owe him gratitude at least for that. From what I know, he is an erudite
and accomplished author/teacher in the areas of economics and philosophy.

I am also aware that he has worked with the CIA, but that is all I know and I don’t think you are right to draw any conclusions about me from that. I hope you are not naive enough to believe that everyone
connected with the CIA routinely engages in water boarding on weekends. It’s a large, mostly bureaucratic organization.

The fact that I might have accepted an invitation to speak at the same conference where Dr. Skousen was also speaking says nothing. I also correspond with an Indian friend of (the late) Milton Friedman. I
suppose you would say that makes me complicit in South American torture, as Naomi Klein seems to think. Actually, I consider Dr. Friedman a statist and far from being libertarian. but I doubt that even statist economics inevitably leads to a painful death.

Finally, my birth data is not on the Internet, because I don’t give it out. Put it down to the fragile egos of women over the age of thirty. If there’s anything else you’d like to know, please feel free to drop
me an email, instead of taking it to an Internet web page.

Kind regards.
Lila Rajiva

THAT IS THE LAST EMAIL I EVER SENT HIM.

Now, please check the number of times he has posted all over the net any time he hears my name, even if it’s from a third party. The figure runs into the scores, even though a number of sites were ethical enough to take down his posts after I explained the story.

Even so, there is no forum on which he hasn’t tried to smear me or get into battle with the forum’s owners to spread his lies.

Notice, how his story keeps changing.

First, Porter Stansberry invited him down to Baltimore; then, when he got angry with me, it became Lila Rajiva and Porter Stansberry.

First, it was Mark Skousen who worked for the CIA (true enough) and then it became Lila Rajiva and Skousen, who work for the CIA.

First, it was Bud Burrell who threatened him; then it’s Bud Burrell (whom I don’t know) and Lila Rajiva who threatened him.

In other words, he just adds the name of whoever he’s angry with to whatever allegation he is spewing.

Yet these clear signs of either derangement or disinformation are ignored by Indymedia, to whom truth doesn’t matter as long as they can smear whomever they see as their opponents (and I have no idea why they should consider me so, since I am fairly anti-corporatist as well).

NOTE: there is NOT ONE WORD in all these emails inviting him to Baltimore or to any other Agora office anywhere.

To be truthful, I originally didn’t read what Ryals had to say in any great depth, because it all sounded like the confused ranting of someone who was extremely upset. Throughout 2006-07 I was much more involved in researching the housing bubble fraud and tying together the story of Goldman Sachs so that, for me, the pump-and-dump part of the story was much less interesting, as it was more limited in scope…. or. so it seemed to me at the time.

Indeed, the only reason I became interested again in what Ryals was saying was that during the promotion of the book I began to become alarmed by the loose attitude of some (note, some) editors/copywriters/publishers to factual accuracy, attribution, and related copyright matters.

This was one of the reasons I left.

About a month later, I remembered what I’d read on the web and decided to find out what happened to Ryals’ case. My email to him (a few polite noncommittal words) is the last email (see above) I ever sent him.

That was in 2008. And again, there’s not a word in it inviting anyone anywhere.

As soon as Ryals got my mail, he went to my blog and noticed I was supporting Ron Paul. This sent him into a wild rage and he began attacking me, both at the blog and all over stock forums. And that has continued almost non-stop for three and a half years, escalating to wilder and wilder statements.

Update 6 (September 28, 2010)

I just came across this site, which hosts some poems and essays from Ryals (see below). From appearances, it seems to be legitimate and it gives some information about his motives and background.

This is what I get from it:

1. Ryals says he is a small investor/stock trader, who invested his inheritance in stocks (in some posts, it’s $60,000; in others, it’s $200,000). Apparently, he lost it all via Charles Schwab in an investment (Endovasc) sold by James Dale Davidson. This seems to have been in 2001-2002.

Ryals has posted since then under multiple aliases on the Raging Bull message-board, a frequent haunt of paid “bashers” who pose as cybervigilantes looking out for naive investors. In reality, many of these so-called vigilantes have turned out to be in the pay of short-selling hedge-funds and their associates.

Ryals might be one of them, or he might be posting disinformation that helps them, or he might genuinely be a defrauded investor who’s driven himself a bit crazy over his loss. This is not to say that there isn’t some truth in what he alleges. But it is misconstrued and mangled to the point that it actually constitutes a hindrance to anyone researching these topics seriously.

2. Ryals also seems to have had a mental illness/breakdown and been confined at some point. That’s by his own admission. This would account for the stream-of-consciousness writing and magical thinking, as well as the emotional fixation that I’ve noted.

3. He seems to make his money from a small farming (coffee business) of some kind in Guatemala (which is where his IP addresses originate). The outfit is called Tostaduria, Antigua, and his writings on coffee, politics, finance, and other things, are hosted by a budget travel site based in Central America. In earlier versions, this site seemed to be very much on the left, as you would think if it hosted Ryals’ writing.

However, the home page on June 12, 2011, displayed an animus toward Islam (“gutter religion”, “Mohammed (May s*** be upon him”) that’s quite outlandish, especially coming from a self-described progressive site. Notice also that Ryals, though posing as some one on the far left, actually supports establishment Democrats, rushing to the defense of Bill and Hillary Clinton over the Vince Foster story, for instance.

Ryals’ unwavering position that there is no such thing as naked short-selling is in fact a hallmark of the thinking of the financial establishment, which makes me suspect that someone or other from that bloc subsidizes or feeds his rants in some way. It is interesting, for example, that while he rants about my “connection” to Agora, he never mentions figures currently working in that outfit.

Some of them are connected to Wall Street and thereby to the hedge-fund community. Elements in that community, as Deep Capture notes, are have connections to organized crime and have a history of bashing people on the net anonymously, in the most scurrilous terms.

That suggests to me that some of the anonymous libels of me (not those by Ryals, but other comments) might well have come from someone with such connections. See here for a forum discussion, in which an editor of Barron’s complains about a threat made to him, which turns out to have been made, allegedly, in response to anonymous slanders posted by the cybervigilantes connected to the hedge-fund community. What you have is two aggressive groups facing off at each other n message-boards, and it is entirely a matter of opinion which is more to be blamed…and why.

Ryals has clearly interacted at some level with mainstream financial reporters and editors. And has perhaps picked up from them some of their presuppositions and mythologies, or at least the fashionable rationalizations for the culture, one of which is that speculators are always righteous “activists” in the public interest, and never self-interested and amoral actors, who receive the first benefits of cheap money.

Thus, his incessant attacks on gold as an inflation hedge.

Thus also his attention (and venom) is focused on a motley band of right-leaning figures, including Lew Rockwell, Patrick Byrne, and Jim Davidson, who have only one thing in common obviously.

They are all, in different ways, critics of the Federal Reserve the allied DTCC, and the misuse of the paper money regime.

Therein lies the true motivation for Ryals’ nasty, supposedly “progressive” rants.

4. Ryals exhibits a deep-seated hatred of Christianity and the Pope in his writing. This is observation not psychoanalysis, since none is needed. His mental state speaks for itself.

5. He writes under multiple emails, probably as a result of being banned from various forums or having his account deactivated for using too many aliases and posting off-topic. Apparently he sees this as some kind of global censorship of his stock investigations.

[I can’t say whether or not he has been censored in other contexts, but I certainly never asked to censor his views on anything, except to ask him to remove false and malicious statements about me. Besides, I have no motive to, since I also think the financial world is riddled with fraud and corruption and have written a lot about it. The only difference is that I don’t make any distinctions between different types of fraud, whereas Ryals (along with the establishment media in general) prefers to focus on management-related fraud or stock-pumping and money-laundering, while ignoring “activist” hedge-fund/speculator -related fraud. This often boils down to a political division, since several libertarian activists seem to show up in government cases of tax evasion or share manipulation or licensing issues (eg. this piece on intelligence analyst-turned-stock promoter, Bob Chapman) whereas speculators and banks, even those committing much larger and more consequential frauds, seem to walk free.

As one of the targets of his rants says:

“Your delight in attacking responsible people and companies and indiscriminately lumping them into a category with bad actors is a destructive way for someone to spend their time on the Internet. You carefully hide behind the anonymity of the Internet. I have no need to do so. “ (Ronald Logan, Atty., Logan & Geotas, Phoenix, Arizona)

6. Again, as I note below, I think the Deep Capture website is closer to the truth than the other sites that try to identify Ryals (Causalnexus, Fraudwatch?). Both of these claim he’s a con man called Joe Cafasso. But somehow the profiles there don’t match what I’ve learned about Ryals. But again, I repeat, this is only intelligent surmise from research on the web.

[UPDATE (SEPT 26) I came across what looks like an accurate picture of Mr. Ryals here .

As I said, Causal Nexus and Fraudwatch seem to have got it wrong.]

[June 12: I have rewritten parts of this section, since there was some repetition in the old version. I’ve also added some new links I came across about Ryals}

So who is he?

From his posts,

Clarence Anthony Ryals was born in Texas and raised in Louisiana, before moving to California. In around 1993 he seems to have moved to Guatemala and started a small coffee business a bit later. He claims he is a small investor/trader, who lost his inheritance in the market. That much seems to be accurate, but the rest is a mish-mash of links, names, and events that sometimes have only a tenuous connection to each other.

As I just said, this is either because Ryals has a mental problem…or because someone pays him to write as if he does. You’ll notice that his articles on other topics besides finance, such as his pieces on cocoa, display none of the confusion and contradiction evident in his comments on naked short-selling.

While he doesn’t sound like the professional con artist described at Causal Nexus, he associates on boards with some people who might well be. He is said to have become something of an eccentric local fixture, showing up in accounts of travelers to Guatemala.

That is, if the “cocoa man” is really him, and not a fictitious persona.

Added, July 4, 2011:

How one can be both “penniless” and running a coffee business, while spending every waking minute posting on Indymedia like clockwork is anyone’s guess. Then again for a “naive” investor, Ryals seems to have quite a sophisticated knowledge of the inside workings of stock manipulations. He seems to have more inside knowledge of it than I do…. and I only spent several years researching the financial markets, besides having some trading experience of my own.

That level of sophistication contrasts strangely with the feigned stupidity or incoherence exhibited in Ryals’ “smear” posts. One logical conclusion would be that he is NOT quite the naive mark he claims, but an operative of some kind. Guatemala, after all, is a good place to hide out of the reach of investigators or nosy journalists.

(End of addition)

More to the point, and quite oddly, Ryals’ name has also shown up in several newspaper articles in the MSM, and he seems to have corresponded with several reputed print journalists, including Carol Remond, Christopher Byron, Gary Weiss, and blogger Jeff Mitchell, among others. There is a degree of attention-seeking in his name-dropping about the people he “knows” and their interest in his incessant self-referential cut-and-paste posts.

I notice that in the past few months he’s stopped referencing me in his posts. I think maybe it sank into his head that I’ve been telling the truth.

{Update: Feb 15 2011: Unfortunately, this hiatus was short-lived]

Update 5 (September 10, 2010):

I’ve made all except two of my previous posts on Agora private, as there isn’t any longer a valid reason for them to be aired in the public realm. They’ll stay that way, unless I see some further need to republish them. (Added: May 3, 2011: Since then, Ryals’s renewed libels, as well as other developments, have led me to keep most of my posts up).

Internet disclosures are permanent and very intrusive and I made those only after carefully weighing any personal injury they might cause against my own right to defend my credibility and the public interest at stake. My judgment at this point is that my privacy, as well as the privacy of the people I’ve cited, trumps any public interest in the matter.

So, the only posts still public are this one and another responding to web libel directed against me. These two will remain public as long as those libels remain on the net.

Update 4 (June 26, 2010):

Re: the accusation by Ryals (multiple posted) that I created a “vanity” bio. This is rubbish too. You can’t actually create a “vanity” bio. There are a number of criteria for an entry, and an entry that doesn’t meet those criteria will be removed in short order.

So that’s Ryals’ imagination. My bio was originally created by someone who liked the Abu Ghraib book. I didn’t know about it and found out purely by accident. Originally, wikipedia also had a photo of me posted there, which I had removed – something I surely wouldn’t have done, if I was interested in self-promotion. That was in 2006.

Shortly after, I wrote in support of the 9-11 truth movement. It was at that point that someone at wikipedia decided I didn’t deserve an entry and tried to remove my page. The discussion ended with my entry being retained. That actually happened twice and had everything to do with my writing on Zionism and 9-11, since Wikipedia is controlled on certain subjects by a Zionist cabal, to which Gary Weiss, allegedly, belongs. Weiss is highly critical of Patrick Byrne and the whole anti-naked-short-selling campaign, whereas, in general and with some caveats, I support it. Weiss is, allegedly, protected by Jimmy Wales, the founder/owner of Wikipedia. I know nothing about Wales, beyond what I read. In fact, I first heard Wales’ name from the Ryals. Yet, on multiple forums, Ryals links my name to Weiss, simply to smear me. He has claimed that I’m married to Gary Weiss, and when that didn’t fly, that I traveled to India with him and his wife. Actually, I was in the country through out 2005 and that is documented. I had to be, because I was working on a book and I needed to have access to good libraries, which I wouldn’t have had in India.

In 2008-09, when there was an issue about the attribution of certain articles, a close friend added pieces to the existing list of my articles at the wikipedia entry. Nothing wrong with that. There was nothing promotional about the list. It was a factual record of the truth. I blogged about that and about Deep Capture, Weiss and Ryals. In July-August 2009, a pro-Zionist editor at wikipedia saw my blog post (which was supportive of DC) and immediately tried to eliminate my wiki entry again. The editor also tried to expunge the wikipedia entry for the GetAbstract business award, which is given out by a libertarian business outfit in Switzerland and is a well-known, well-regarded and influential award, cited in all major media. That shows you what the political agenda of wikipedia is.

**My credentials are exactly as I’ve said they are and they can be verified quite easily by anyone who puts in the effort and uses their intelligence. More than that I’m unwilling to put on the net, given that my blog is fairly controversial and I’m an immigrant writing about politics here. I travel widely and spend a lot of time outside the country, which is why I regard myself as an unofficial expat. In a while, I’ll put up some of my doctoral work, as well as testimonials (suitably scrubbed) as verification.

Another example. Ryals claims that I must be Mysid (a wikipedia editor who edited James Davidson’s entry there).

Quote: I suspect the Mysid alias Wikpedia editor is really the fraud and possibly dangerous Agora Inc criminal Lila Rajiva.

Now take a look at the Mysid profile. Mysid is (or claims to be) a biosciences student from somewhere in northern Europe. She edited the Davidson entry in early November 2005, before I’d even been hired by Agora. At the time I was still teaching and was working on the release of my first book, “The Language of Empire” . As you can imagine, I was swamped with work and with articles and PR connected with the book…. as any writer would be. Fiddling with a stranger’s wikipedia page would be the last thing I’d have time for, even if you assume I was engaged in some kind of global conspiracy to cover up for an Anglophile stock-promoter/political activist I’d never laid eyes on and had only heard about from Ryals’ Indymedia posting in the first place. What’s more, a brown-skinned, black-haired, middle-aged Indian humanities scholar who relies on her web reputation for her credibility would surely do something a tad easier and smarter than moonlight as a blue-eyed (presumably), twenty-something Scandinavian science student whose email, IP address, appearance and identity could easily be verified by wikipedia.

Update 2, June 13, 2010): I’ve noticed that several Indymedia outlets (see here and here) are now deleting/hiding Ryals’ posts, not because they’re censoring the content (which would be wrong) but because it’s obvious that he’s posting for reasons quite other than what he states. He’s google-bombing and using Indymedia as a PR tool rather than an information outlet. Add to that, cross-posting, endless self-referential links, repetition, ad hominem, and vicious twisting of facts. Recently, I also noticed this allegation that Ryals is actually a well-known confidence man called Joe Cafasso. That doesn’t seem too plausible to me, but who knows…..

In any case, what is clear is that there seems to be a long streak of confusion and disinformation of some kind in Ryals posts, as even fellow message-board aficionados and anti-NSS critics have noted:

“Mark [Cuban, of Blog Maverick], do us a favor and introduce an ignore feature to your blog. This will be a very interesting topic and I’d like to put Tony Ryals on ignore so I don’t have to wade through 50 pages of him cutting and pasting stuff and self indulging his ego with fragments of illiterate sentences that adds nothing to the conversation but instead clogs any threads of rational discussion.”

The account of Ryals at Deep Capture is probably closest to the truth. I should add that I’ve also seen some evidence in his writing that Ryals is connected to the Wall Street “media mob,” which has been connected to a disinformation campaign conducted by the big banks. The media mob tends to be uncritically admiring of stock vigilantes, even though a number of them have ended up in prison, as you can see from checking out the comments on this Deep Capture post.

Update 1: I’ve added a few facts/explanations to this response (originally posted at Indymedia), since the poster Ryals then did what cyberstalkers and flamers like to do – returned and twisted even my innocuous defense into something different.

(Added on Feb 15, 2011: I am using his name in my revisions/updates because he no longer rushes out to attack when mentioned, which was his old m.o.)

Introduction to Post (Feb 15, 2011):

I’ve posted below my published response to the libels of a cyberstalker and stock-basher (associated, in my belief, as well as in the belief of others, with a group of bashers posing as stock vigilantes, such as Janice Shell, some of whom are directly connected to Anthony Elgindy’s stock-board – anthonypacific.com). Ryals’ abusive and libelous rants about me, and many other people, can be found on Indymedia and other forums:

Original Response On Indymedia

1. I do not know, have never met, and have never corresponded with Porter Stansberry, James Davidson, Bud Burrell, or Gary Weiss. Or Jimmy Wales. I’m certainly not “covering up” for them or for anyone else at Agora Inc. or at Deep Capture. Many of the allegations/facts about Agora cited by this poster Ryals have actually been taken without attribution from research first posted at my blog and then twisted around to suit this poster’s agenda.

2. I did not remove Mr. Davidson’s name from anywhere on wikipedia nor have I ever corresponded with Gary Weiss or Jimmy Wales on wikipedia about Davidson. That can be verified by looking up the record at wikipedia. I contribute once in a while to comments at Deep Capture, a site which is highly CRITICAL of Mr. Weiss. I’m not involved in Deep Capture in any other way, and I’ve never received any compensation from them for anything.

I encountered and corresponded with someone called “Mantanmoreland” when I came across his address and comments NOT at wiki, but at some internet forums like the SEC website, where it was THIS POSTER Ryals who brought his name up:

http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-19-07/s71907-358.htm

[Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and Judd Bagley contend that Mantanmoreland is Weiss and have posted as much on my blog. I tend to agree with them, but since I don’t know for sure, and because Weiss has himself denied it, I prefer not to make that equation in public, since it might be construed as libelous. Also, the important point I’m making is that I didn’t run into Weiss on a wikipedia forum, nor did I erase Davidson’s name from wikipedia. That is pure magical thinking on the part of the stalker. I ran into “Mantanmoreland” on the SEC forum while I was trying to track down the stalker’s libels and respond to them. I only corresponded with Mantanmoreland to find out who my stalker was and for no other purpose. He said he did not know. I forwarded the emails I had received from the stalker to him. At no point did Mantanmoreland ever inform me he was Weiss or that he edited wikipedia, or anything of the kind. Our exchange was solely about the identity and motivation of the stalker, who had bashed us, as well as several other people, including Professor James Angel of Georgetown, who made a film about naked short-selling that set the poster off].

4. I’ve never sold a stock to the public in my life and I’ve never sold a stock in a tip-sheet. Ergo, I cannot be a “stock fraud” or “con artist.” I’m exactly what I say I am – a writer and former school/college teacher. Any investment analysis I’ve ever offered can been seen below.

Note (Feb 15, 2011): I’ve modified and added links to the rest of my original Indymedia post so as to include new information/ links that I’ve come up with.

On the other hand, the poster Ryals is a known basher, who’s had his account deactivated for using too many aliases, and who has a history of posting alongside bashers, such as Hasher and Janice Shell, at Raging Bull. He also associates with some internet posters who are proven extortioners and felons (names deliberately withheld). He lives in Guatemala and posts under dozens of IPs, names, and email addresses.

In this post he references one of his own aliases deceptively to support his claims.

One of his email aliases is biodog0; others are William Knowles, endoscam; and wolfblitzzer0. That last alias is listed in the original complaint in the Zwebner suit as an alias of another stock-board poster, which is how I originally confused the two (I posted my apology to this gentleman at Atomic Bob’s forum. Some of the links to that site have now vanished and been replaced by a most fascinating disclaimer that some of the people posting there were “role-playing” and that their utterances were not to be taken at face-value as serious assertions of fact. These assertions have appeared recently. I can’t say exactly, but I noticed the disclaimer in the last month or so. From the elaborately defensive posture, it seems the site owner might have been informed that some of the posts there went beyond the legal pale. Question: Is Ryals one of the “roles” being played, as I’ve suspected for a while? In other words, it “he” simply a fictitious persona?)

[Besides that, busholini0, another alias said to be this other man’s, shows up in a post by Ryals as a term he favors. So, although the two are apparently different individuals, there is evidence of some kind of association. What and how relevant, I can’t say.]

Note: Zwebner’s case against the other poster, and associated John Doe’s, was dismissed for failing to meet the standard of particularity necessary to prove fraud libel.

Ryals has posted gloatingly that he was “sued by Zwebner” and indulged in some malevolent personal attacks on Zwebner.

Now, Zwebner might or might not be what he is characterized as, but simply as a student of human nature, I find it unbelievable that anyone supposedly so traumatized by financial losses would spend so much time and energy viciously attacking people who did not personally injure him. It doesn’t ring true. Devastated victims do not go around spewing malevolence at anyone who crosses their path for ten years after their loss, using gutter language and allegations. I myself lost a considerable sum following bad advice. My reaction to that was to not want to see or read the missives of the people whose advice I followed. I didn’t want to talk about the loss, was ashamed of it, and turned my energies elsewhere for several years.

[Note: Because the other person, Villasenor, is an Elgindy-related basher, I refer to Ryals as Elgindy-related. As it turns out, it appears I was wrong to identify them as one person. However Ryals also posts under multiple aliases on stock forums, shares similar -sounding email addresses, and was identified as the same person in a lawsuit brought by Michael Zwebner. Janice Shell, who also vehemently attacks naked short-selling on the same stock boards and is rumored to have several sidekicks, including Ryals, is closely connected to Elgindy. A self-styled consumer protector, she was later shown to be profiting from her bashing..So “Elgindy-associated” stands. I try to not to use the poster’s name, since when he’s named anywhere, he immediately shows up, twists the post around and reposts it multiple times with fresh accusations added.]

5. I worked as a part-time contract editor/writer for Bill Bonner’s Daily Reckoning column, where I did research, editing and writing from late 2005-early 2006 up till the fall of 2007. I know nothing about the other departments of his company and was never involved with anyone else there. I worked directly under Mr. Bonner and Mr. Wiggin.

Most of the time I worked on the book I was abroad and worked through the internet, with very limited contact with anyone except Mr. Bonner. I returned to the US in 2007 for the publication of the book and then again left to go abroad, shortly after the release of the book.

6. If the poster Ryals has a problem with Davidson, Stansberry, or Bonner or with Weiss or Burrell, it is very odd that he should spend his time bashing various libertarian bystanders on public forums. Why doesn’t he just address his enemies directly?

[Notice there is no posting at the Daily Reckoning site by this poster, no libels of Davidson, Stansberry, Bonner, or Weiss on their websites. Why not? ]

Correction: This isn’t an objection…they might just be deleting the material.

[Added on April 22, 2011: It’s odd that dozens of people who actually do sell stocks and do know all the people at Agora (Davidson, Stansberry etc.) whom Ryals references are never trashed by him. Long-time Agora associates actively involved in selling stock or real estate newsletters, and far more embedded in the company, are mysteriously ignored. This is surely very suggestive.] June 12, 2011: It’s also odd that when writing about other subjects, like cocoa, Ryals is able to write coherently and logically, even fluently, about complicated things. But on the subject of finance and politics, not so. Then he resorts to copy-pasting other people’s half-digested articles and recycling links referencing his previous posts, over and over, confusing and contradicting himself at every turn, often willfully, and exhibiting a petty malevolence and fury if he is rebutted. This again suggests that his financial postings conceal a deeper agenda.

7. I left Agora in October 2007. My contract for the book was with John Wiley and my royalties are paid through them. Agora is not mentioned anywhere in that contract. Any promotion of the book that I do is as a co-author, with a contractual obligation to publicize the book. I’ve never been paid to blog by Agora, as this poster implies, and I’ve never sought any other compensation or advantage for blogging. Quite the contrary.

[The dispute I had was over whether the book with Bonner was an Agora book. This point was never clarified and it led to a number of problems that undermined my original agreement with Mr. Bonner. that have been resolved. However, and I’ve put the issue behind me. as there’s little to be done at this point].

8. I have never harassed or stalked the poster, as he claims. The opposite is true. I contacted him in 2005 to find out more about allegations he (the poster Ryals) had plastered over the net about Agora. He sent me emails alleging that there was a vast on-going fraud centered around an investment of his with Mr. Davidson. At my interview I asked Mr. Bonner, as well as Mr. Wiggin, if Davidson still worked there. They said no and actually distanced themselves from him.*

Quote: “We had a lot of bad publicity about that. We’re trying to put it behind us.”

I told the poster Ryals that, as can be seen from the email he has cited, and had no further exchange with him until November 2007, when I left the company because of differences over the promotion of the book, copyright, and other matters. I felt I had been treated very shabbily and thought I should find out more.

(*This was one of many things that turned out to be not quite as they told me).

At that point, the poster Ryals found from my blog that I was a Ron Paul supporter and had had some articles published on the Lew Rockwell site. This changed his attitude toward me, which until then had been respectful and admiring. He flew into a rage and flamed my blog with dozens of posts calling me a “stock fraud,” “bimbo,” “con artist,” and so on. Meanwhile, in my response, I only asked him very civilly why he couldn’t have just asked me any questions over email rather than take it to the internet (see email cited).

[Note, July 3, 2011. I no longer endorse Ron Paul, politically, although I still consider him one of the few good candidates overall. Ultimately, like all politicians, he is bound by the rules of the game in which he plays. It is not a game that I think is useful for the average person to waste much time on, except in so far as it might directly impact them. For me the answer lies outside politics in the broad culture and in the expansion, one by one, of each person’s sphere of responsible freedom].

That’s the sum of my correspondence with him, a total of 4 5 polite letters over 2 years, the first two quite sympathetic to his story, and one message no more than a sentence in length. This the poster Ryals calls “stalking.”

On the other hand, since November 2007, Ryals has pseudonymously* flamed my blog dozens of time, all the while libeling me on Google in scores of vicious rants that connect me via six degrees of separation to everyone from the Pentagon shooter to Christopher Cox, in multiple highly-visible forums on the web.

(*He uses multiple false emails and IP addresses, even if, as he now claims, his name is genuine)

He’s attacked me every time I’ve tried to correct his false statements. He’s attacked me every time I’ve posted about a conference or business contact. The object is obviously to cause me maximum personal and professional damage, with no concern for the truth or falsity of what he’s saying. His writing displays the sadism and emotional fixation that are part of the classic profile of stalkers. I strongly suspect him, or his associates, of hacking my email and blog, or inciting/provoking others indirectly to do so. It has come to the point that I am looking at professional security experts to protect me and my family.

What’s more, I suspect that someone must be paying him to write like this because he doesn’t seem to have any known means of support and has admitted to being penniless. He rarely criticizes the major banks and speculators involved in the ongoing fraud on our capital markets, so it’s more than plausible that his rants are related to an effort to discredit those who do criticize them, or they are intended to confuse the issue.

[May 7: I went back over his posts and noticed that has has lately started tacking on references to Goldman Sachs and John Paulson onto his cut and paste diatribes, possibly in response to my analysis. Again, this kind of thing makes me suspect more and more that there is some kind of disinformation being pumped through him. I might be wrong. But no other explanation makes sense at this point.

This doesn’t mean all his targets are necessarily innocent. It means that he isn’t either.

I’ve counseled him to stop lashing out at innocent people in his rage, several times. Libel is as surely a crime as fraud. Slander is as serious an injury as physical attack.

Most experts counsel not responding in any way to cyber-bullying of this sort and staying off the web altogether. Unfortunately, as a blogger, I can’t do this.

9. Any information related to Agora has been disclosed on my blog carefully not to “cover up” (a quite laughable allegation, given my outspokenness about them both in person and on the web), but to avoid legal trouble and to respect the right to privacy and presumption of innocence of the individuals named.

Claiming to act in “the public interest” doesn’t mean you can be defamatory with impunity, even under current first amendment law.

10. Hundreds of malicious, sweeping, undocumented, and highly speculative allegations do nothing to add to the poster’s credibility (or to Indymedia’s). It only serves to make a mockery of community media and hinder the efforts of real activists/journalists.

I wonder if such posts would be allowed if the targets hadn’t been libertarians but socialists.

I seriously doubt it.

For shame.

Lila Rajiva

PS. I stand by the remark that I made in early 2008 (after I had left Agora and was no longer receiving compensation for them in any way and without any solicitation on their part). I remarked that if you had followed Bonner’s ‘trade of the decade’ (sell the stock market, buy gold) you would indeed have doubled your money by 2008. I didn’t do that to “promote Bonner” . It was simply a truthful observation and I brought it up in my exchange with the poster to defend myself from his charge that my book was somehow inaccurate or misleading. It was not. Read it and see.

_

______________________________________________________________________

A partial list of writing I did while a contributing editor at The Daily Reckoning financial newsletter….

(To be completed in time…)

IV An India Hand at the Daily Reckoning: What the Yonghy Bonghy Bo Didn’t Know 11/13/2006 (reprinted)

Published by mb4 at 5:30 pm under Lila at The Daily Reckoning, Writing, Globalization, Economy Edit This

From the Daily Reckoning archives — my first encounter with globalisation in India (we used this in the book).

My note is down in the middle of the newsletter.
Mon, November 13, 2006 02:24:26 PM

From:

The Daily Reckoning

Subject:

Today’s Daily Reckoning:

Worthless Dollars in a Drafty Shack

The Daily Reckoning

Baltimore, Maryland

Monday, November 13, 2006

———————

*** What’s that? Greenspan isn’t always right?! We are shocked!

*** Toll Brothers CEO worries that there is no recovery in sight for the
U.S. housing market…

*** A special report from India…cars are now competing with people for
the same agricultural commodity…and more!

———————

*** Lila Rajiva sends us this note from Tamil Nadu, India: “Not only are the happenings here varied across industries, they are also
geographically diverse. Chennai prices and infrastructure are looking more
and more attractive next to the skyrocketing real estate and moribund
roads in Bangalore. But far-sighted companies are already looking past
Chennai to smaller towns. There is a lot of potential here, since the
growth that has taken place so far seems concentrated in the larger
cities. Foreigners writing about the country sometimes forget that there
are over a billion people here, and that most of them live in the
countryside and in villages and small towns.

“Small, of course, is a very relative term. A small town in India can have
a couple of hundred thousand people. And it can have wayward dirt roads
and power shortages at the same time as it has cutting-edge technology.

“That’s the case with Vellore. A dusty town ringed around by desolate,
rain-worn hills; and until recently known mainly for its Christian mission
hospital and college. Today, it’s a bustling overcrowded educational hub,
sprouting engineering colleges, the latest electronic gadgets, and a
supermarket. World Bank money has poured in to refurbish the old fort from
which the rebel Hindu prince Shivaji once fought the mighty Mughal Empire.
The Vellore Institute of Technology, which gets 7000 applicants, has been
featured in the Washington Post, and computer support and technical help
abounds. Getting on the net was a cinch. It only took a quick call to a
computer center that charged me a hundred rupees (less than three dollars)
for the cable and the house call.

To read this article in its entirety, see our site: The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo Only Got Half the Story http://dailyreckoning.com/Featured/Lila111306.htm.

The Unbearable Lightness of the Buck – Bonner & Rajiva on the Declining Dollar on 7/20/2007 (reprinted)

Published by mb4 under Lila at The Daily Reckoning, Writing, Empire, Finance Edit This

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF THE BUCK
by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva

It was the Chinese who invented paper “money” around the beginning of the ninth century A.D. Because it was so light it would blow out of their hands, they called it “flying money.”

The ancient Chinese were right about the lack of substance of paper currency. The greenback seems to have less substance every day. But we do not wonder why the greenback seems to be dying. We wonder why it isn’t dead already.

In search of an answer, we look back, to a case brought by the First National Bank of Montgomery, Minnesota, against one Jerome Daly in 1969.

The bank had lent Mr. Daly $14,000 in a mortgage loan. Then it tried to get its money back by foreclosing on Daly’s house. Daly took to the courts with a defense so ingenious even a Chinese banker might wish to emulate it.

You can’t enforce a mortgage contract, said he, when there was no contractual obligation. And there was no valid obligation because no “consideration” had been given by the bank. Having gotten nothing from the bank, he had nothing give back.

In support of his testimony, Mr. Daly, a lawyer, called the bank president to the stand and demanded to know if the bank had actually handed him a wad of $20 bills.

“Isn’t it true,” he began, or words to that effect, “that the bank did not actually give me a stack of $20 bills? In fact, the bank didn’t give me any bills of any sort, right?”

“Well, yes…but…” the bank president must have replied.

“Nor did the bank convey any property to me…or give me gold coins…or any other valuable, tangible thing…right?”

“Well, yes…but…” came the next reply, also cut off by Mr. Daly’s next question.

“And isn’t it true that the bank did not go out and borrow extra money so it could lend it to me…nor did it draw down its depositors’ accounts in order to give me money?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“In fact, the so-called mortgage loan was, from your point of view, just a bookkeeping entry. Is that not right? And is it not true that the ‘money’ never existed at all…at least not in the sense that most people think of money…and that this ‘money’ was actually ‘created out of thin air’ as the economist John Maynard Keynes once described it?”

“Well, yes…but…”

By this time, both judge and jury were nodding their heads, sure that they had a combination of Charles Ponzi, John Law and Kenneth Lay on the witness stand.

“Fraud!” concluded Justice Mahoney and went on to rule that the bank had given Daly no lawful consideration, had created $14,000 out of nothing, and had done so without the backing of any U.S. law or statute.

Therefore, it followed, the bank was obliged to let Mr. Daly keep his house. And, thus it was that Mr. Daly kept his house.

Whether the reasoning behind this case was right or wrong is not at issue here. Our questions are more numerous but much simpler.

We want to know why there are not more Dalys demanding to keep their houses today. And why there are not more Mahoneys around to let them.

Why did one small court adopt this argument while it left no mark otherwise on American jurisprudence? Despite Justice Mahoney, U.S. courts have rejected every other attempt to argue that the U.S. dollar is not the lawful, valuable money everyone thinks it is. But just how valuable the U.S. dollar is, is a question not for the courts, but for the markets.

The euro, the pound, the Canadian dollar, oil and gold have been pronouncing a judgment of their own this week – all soared against the dollar. And yet not a whimper is to be heard from the great American masses. The dollar may be in trouble abroad, but at home its reputation is still spotless. Gas may cost more, heating bills may be higher, but so far milk, eggs, and beer have not soared beyond the budget of the masses. The people may have mortgaged their futures for the roof over their heads and sold their souls for a mess of credit, but with home prices still holding up and stocks pushing at all time highs, the devil has not come around for repayment yet.

Helping to postpone the day he does, the government also quietly stopped reporting M3 money in March 2006. M3 is the broadest measure of the “money supply” in the U.S. economy. As the supply of money increases, typically, consumer prices go up. Independent analysts who keep an eye on these things tell us that the green stuff is being pumped in at one of the highest rates ever – 12% per year, or four times the rate of GDP growth.

“Then why has it not gone to swell the prices of groceries yet?” you might ask.

The answer is that the people with the most money are spreading it around in places far distant from the local Superfresh. The ersatz money is circulating these days in art houses and auctions, in exotic vacation houses and rental properties, in retirement funds and pensions. Securitized and derivatized, packaged and repackaged, it is lent from one end of the globe to the other, forcing central bankers all over the world to work their own printing presses night and day to keep up with it. The resulting global “liquidity” is the bilge upon which asset prices float and make this boom so great for asset owners.

But this liquidity is no different from the non-existent “consideration” that Mr. Daly received from the First National Bank of Montgomery. It was this shaky credit that was packaged into new debt instruments like CDOs that are so intricate that teams of mathematicians cannot fathom all the ramifications and complications thereof. In a miracle rivaling any by the Galilean, these same oily pretzels of debt were twisted into Triple A rated bonds and sold to pension funds and institutional investors. Now the buyers are finding that the grease has turned rancid: Last week, the three leading rating agencies downgraded debt linked to the shakiest part of the housing market – the subprime loans. And following swiftly, one hedge fund at Bear Stearns took ill and passed away altogether while a third gave up 91% of its returns.

Ben Bernanke would like to boost rates to support the dollar and help American tourists, but faced with a liquidity crisis in the $500 trillion derivatives market, he’ll have to think thrice before doing so. But rates are going up with or without him. Lenders are finally growing wary.

Afraid of the poisonous debt packages, buyers are passing up another helping. “All but one of the 15 ABX indexes fell to a record low,” says Bloomberg news. Offers for CDOs are said to be going “no bid.” And several major debt offerings had to be withdrawn or rescheduled as promoters were afraid that they, too, would go “no bid.”

We don’t know if the First National Bank of Montgomery still exists. But if it does, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it is growing more cautious about lending. And dollar holders all over the world are tightening their grip, fearing that their flying money might fly away.

Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva

From The Daily Reckoning

And here’s a note I did for the Daily Reckoning on gold price manipulation at the IMF (scroll down for the note)

Thu, June 08, 2006 01:29:50 PM

From:

The Daily Reckoning

Subject:

Today’s Daily Reckoning
Black Sheep in the Marketplace

The Daily Reckoning

London, England

Thursday, June 08, 2006

———————

*** The worldwide sell-off…Bernanke talks the talk, but he’ll never walk
Volcker’s walk – not even with lifts…

*** GATA is looking saner everyday…being a central bank means never
having to say you’re short…

*** Always helps to have friends in high places…unwinding in Japan…and
more!

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And more thoughts:

*** Daily Reckoning correspondent, Lila Rajiva, finds a scoop…in India:

“After years of being called crackpots in tin – or gold – foil hats, GATA
(the U.S.-based Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) seems to look saner by
the day, next to the thorough-going loopiness of the financial
establishment. The latest evidence is an IMF report that shows how IMF
rules wink – if they do not actually blow kisses – at central banks that
double-count the gold reserves they’ve lent out for sale in the open
market. Apparently, being a central bank means never having to say you’re
short.

“Aha, says GATA, which has charged all along that the IMF along with the
U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks have tried to hold down gold
prices. The shady rules suggest that when they lent gold out for cash, the
banks actually got to double their reserves by counting the leased gold as
an asset on their books, as well as the cash. That was pretty sweet both
for the lenders – the central banks, who got a small return for their gold
– and for the borrowers, the bullion banks who got to sell and reinvest
the proceeds for a higher return in what’s called a ‘carry trade.’

“Even the IMF report admits, delicately, that IMF rules have encouraged
‘overstating reserve assets because both the funds received from the gold
swap and the gold are included in reserve assets.’ But except for a lone
article yesterday in The Financial Express in India, (Sangita Shah, Double
counting of gold may have aided the price suppression, June 7, 2006), the
mainstream media has ignored the story.”

Here’s the first of a short series of notes I did at the Daily Reckoning that got used – one way or other – in “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.” This one from May 12 2006 showshow outsourcing might attract global info tech workers to Buenos Ayres. I’ve moved the note to the front of the newsletter from its original place to make it easier to read.
Fri, May 12, 2006 07:04:06 PM

From: The Daily Reckoning

Today’s Daily Reckoning

Don’t Cry For Evita

The Daily Reckoning

London, England

Friday, May 12, 2006

———————

*** We hate to brag – but we saw this bull market coming from a mile
away…people are losing faith in paper…

*** Unreliable contrarians…debt has a mind of her own…

*** Prices are becoming a barrier to homebuyers…laying low in things
settle down in the United States…and more!

———————
——————————————————
You are receiving this email as a part of your FREE
Subscription to The Daily Reckoning. You signed up
for a free subscription on Tuesday, December 27, 2005.
Should you wish to *** please follow the
instructions at the bottom of this email.
——————————————————
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———————

More views from Bill Bonner…*** Ameriquest, one of the nation’s leading mortgage lenders closed 229
branches and laid off 3800 employees. Households are paying more in
mortgage interest than they have for the last quarter century – 15.8%. It
appears that they have reached a limit. Mortgage applications are
declining. Unsold inventories of houses are increasing. The bubble in
America’s property market is over. At last, it looks as if prices are
becoming a barrier to buyers.

But what will those who need a roof over their heads do now?

Where they will go?

*** Colleague Lila Rajiva, down south, offers a possibility:

“Buenos Aires is bustling. Not just with tourists or casual visitors
either. It seems a lot of foreigners are here to take advantage of the
relatively cheap price of real estate. The real bargains, of course, were
snapped up during the slump a few years ago, but there are still good
deals to be had – especially for refugees from the inflated prices of the
American and British housing market.

“It seems that housing is only one reason people are coming down here. On
the subte (underground rail) downtown, I ran into two visitors who must be
a sign of things to come. The weather is summery right now, though it’s
the beginning of fall in the Southern hemisphere, and both of them were in
the usual get-up of the European at large – khakhi shorts, tennis shoes,
and baggy tee-shirts. So, at first I thought they were students
backpacking for a semester, but Ross, the younger one, was an English
teacher who had taken off a year or two t