Pettis Versus Grantham on the commodity cycle

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Greenworld Investor has a piece on the debate between Michael Pettis and Jeremy Grantham on where we are in the commodity cycle:

“Two of the most respected market analysts have radically opposite positions on where the commodity cycle is right now. While Michael Pettis thinks that the commodity cycle has peaked and hard commodities will crash by 2015, Grantham thinks there has been a paradigm change in commodities which will keep on increasing in price.

Pettis’s Arguments are based on:

a) First, during the last decade commodity producers were caught by surprise by the surge in demand. Their belated response was to ramp up production dramatically, but since there is a long lead-time between intention and supply, for the next several years we will continue to experience rapid growth in supply.

b) Second, almost all the increase in demand in the past twenty years, which in practice occurred mostly in the past decade, can be explained as the consequence of the incredibly unbalanced growth process in China.

c) Third, and more importantly, as China’s economy re-balances towards a much more sustainable form of growth, this will automatically make Chinese growth much less commodity intensive

d) Surging Chinese hard commodity purchases in the past few years supplied, not just growing domestic needs but also rapidly growing inventory.

Grantham Thesis on Commodities

Global Commodity Parabolic Price Rise Bubble or Real- Is it Really Different This Time

The rise in global commodity prices is fueling inflation everywhere particularly in developing countries where food and energy forms a major percentage of the inflation basket. This has forced countries like India and China to accelerate interest rate hikes to cool down inflation. Rising Food Prices has caused distress in a number of places leading to food riots in Africa and have been said to be a leading cause of the revolutions in the Middle East. Oil Prices continues to increase unabated as dollar decreases with US Money Printing. Commodities are touching new all time peaks as rising global demand, finite resources, money printing by developed countries fuel price hikes. Silver has been increasing in a parabolic manner with other commodities too showing heart-stopping jumps in prices. The rise in global wheat,rice prices has been at a record as well. Almost all commodities have seen sharp prices increase.

Grantham has made a famous call

The rise in commodities is not a cyclical phenomenon but a secular long term one. He says that the rise in commodity prices is different from the past. Note Grantham has done an extensive study of bubbles and is one of the leading minds in the investment community. While every time in the past, the statement “this time is different” has led to a crash, Grantham’s call cannot be taken lightly. He says that the rise in population, shortage of resources, the growing consumption power of massive chunks of prosperous citizens in India and China will lead to a continued surge. Note commodity prices have declined secularly in the last century and since 2000 have managed to erase all their losses to form new peaks. Grantham also says there is a possibility of a massive short term decline which will give a historic opportunity to load on commodities. Jim Rogers is the most famous commodity bull and now Grantham has joined him.”

The white woman’s burden in India..

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The Times of India describes the increased levels of “eve-teasing” and groping in India since liberalization in the 1990s.

White women are more often targeted on the streets, as Hollywood culture ensures that they’re seen as more promiscuous and available. In addition, all white women are often  assumed to be “American” and therefore rich, complain some Latin women.

Finally, since white/fair skin is slavishly admired in Asia, white women are also objectified and targeted as symbols of status and economic class. Conversely, black men and women are denigrated.

Such colonial attitudes seem to be worse in north India.

In contrast to demeaning attitudes toward women in the the West, which seem to be most prevalent in areas dominated by urban cosmopolitan males (such as the financial industry) , the harassment of women in neo-liberal India seems to be more in the nature of street crime committed by  the semi-educated and the illiterate, under the influence of mass culture.

I noted this in a recent blog post arguing against the ban of the burqa and pointing out its use in protecting women from harassment on the street.

Among the educated and the professional classes in India, slavishness and obsequiousness toward the West and to whites is is a much more common social ill.

” Foreign women tourists in India often find themselves placed in uncomfortable cultural stereotypes and an increasing number of them have begun attributing this attitude to a colonial throwback.

A decade ago, women comprised only 25% of the total Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India every year. Presently, at 40%, women tourists are still a comparative minority despite the increase. According to a recurring Forbes survey on the world’s friendliest countries for expatriates and tourists, India ranked in one of the last slots for the second year in a row.

India’s not-so-friendly attitude towards tourists in general and female tourists in particular, varies in different regions. While the southern and western parts of the country rank favourably, north India is unanimously the most prejudiced culturally.

Theresa Price, a college student from Britain said, “Most people do tour North India because of the Taj Mahal, but it is steeped in cultural prejudices. The usual problems foreign women face like constant staring and eve-teasing is most rampant here.”

Amid this, the capital, which ranks second only to Mumbai in terms of popularity, emerges as a curious conglomerate. “Delhi is just like any other impressive modern metropolis on the face of it, but there coexists another reality as well. I find it very interesting that despite being such a representative city, a large section of people are still ignorant,” said Agata Ruiz from Argentina.

“White- skinned people are treated as being economically advanced and intrinsically powerful on account of their ‘fair skin’, despite which country they are from. This notion is usually shared by people of lower income groups. Taxi and auto drivers in Delhi just assumed I was American!” said Agata. She however agreed that this ingrained idealization of a stereotypical west is something she has seen in Argentina as well.

“Whenever I go out with my Canadian girlfriend, people think I am her ‘guide’. The shopkeepers at Chandni Chowk treated me like a middleman, as I stopped one from trying to unfairly fleece her, he cursed me for ruining the deal,” said Vikas Arora.

A lot of foreign tourists agreed that local north Indians tried too hard to please them, and this problem was compounded in the case of women. Sharell Cook, an Australian married to an Indian, living here for the last five years observes, “Indian men are more likely to want to try and please me. I find that in my daily dealings with Indian people, the men are likely to ‘adjust’ in my favour, whereas the women won’t. Indian women aren’t as influenced, impressed, or intimidated by me. They want to look after me and mother me.”

“Certain sections of Indian society still see their relationship with white-skinned people as that of master-servant. Putting them on a pedestal creates a distance, and this distance makes Indians feel resentful towards them. They conveniently stereotype us as being rich, powerful, wasteful, amoral and culturally degrading,” said Theresa.

In the same vein, women from the west are branded as morally loose and sexually promiscuous. This notion is at the root of the habitual eve-teasing that foreign women suffer. A lot of women complained about the touching and groping that happened in crowded public places over north India.

Recently, in the wake of rape cases, two(incidentally Asian) British politicians have observed that a section of Asian men think white girls are ‘easy’ and ‘fair game’ and this notion perpetrates the crime. The long list of crimes against foreign women and the flourishing foreign prostitution industry in India are also cases in point.

This implicit racism has another side to it. Dark-skinned people are deemed as undesirable and less economically advanced and civilised. “In North India, people are obsessed with fair skin. That is probably why African women do not face the same problems arising from sexual desirability that their white counterparts do,” said Theresa.

According to Indian Tourism statistics, a large number of Africans visit India every year, the highest number being Nigerians who come to Delhi on a medical visa for cheap medical treatment. “The sight of Africans on the metro is far from uncommon these days. I have heard commuters call them ‘habshi’ which is a derogatory colloquial word for a black person of African origin,” said Vikas.

Derina Kay, a research scholar form Namibia said, “In my experience of living in the capital, Indians have often behaved as if they were socially and economically superior to me. I remember a shopkeeper ignoring me and calling out to other white tourists in Dilli Haat. It was usually assumed I was less cultured and educated.”

She said, “I saw this in Ghana too. There, any non-black is immediately assumed to be a rich foreigner likely to spend more. This may be a developing world problem. But hopefully, over time, as the world becomes more globalised, these divisions will break.”

Joshua Holland on the myths behind Romney’s “47%”

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Joshua Holland at Alternet has a thoughtful piece on the intellectual fudging behind  Romney’s  “47%” who allegedly don’t pay taxes, don’t have skin in the game, and feel both entitled and victimized.

This notion of a non-paying half of the population omits a fact that the right usually understands – that these sorts of figures are not set in stone.

47% is a figure that represents mobile segments of the population.

That is, the people who are in the non-paying 47% in one year are in the paying 53%  in the next.

For instance, included in the non-payers are students, who eventually do pay taxes.

Furthermore, there are plenty of wealthy households that don’t pay taxes.

In fact, if Romney wants to find entitled people who cry victim at the drop of a hat, feel the government owes them bail-outs, contribute nothing and steal whatever isn’t actually nailed down, maybe he should check out some of his colleagues in the financial industry.

Joshua Holland writes:

“More than a fifth of households that pay no federal income taxes are elderly. This is a group that should feel entitled. They paid into Social Security and Medicare during their working years, and are now in retirement. Many are struggling to get by .

There are a good number of rich people among the 47 percent of households that pay no federal income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center, 18,000 households with incomes over $500,000 – and 4,000 households bringing in over $1 million – paid no federal income taxes in 2011.

Because there is no discrete group of Americans who routinely pay no income taxes year in and year out, it’s impossible to say for sure what their partisan loyalties might be, but it’s highly likely that a majority of them are Republicans. Around four out of 10 of those households are divided between demographics that lean towards the Dems – students, the poor – and those that lean toward the Republicans – the elderly, disabled veterans. But a majority of that group – six in 10 – are just lower income working families whose incomes fell below a certain threshhold in a given year. And this is where they live:

Click to enlarge.

The Romney campaign is reportedly going to run with this narrative in the coming weeks. The problem is that it only resonates with a minority of hard-right voters who aren’t up for grabs anyway. Most Americans understand that half the country isn’t indolent and doesn’t see themselves of victims of anything but the depression in which we find ourselves today. And that’s why, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday , only 20 percent of registered voters say that Romney’s sneering remarks make them more likely to vote for him, while 36 percent say they’re turned of by them.”

The delusional nature of Romney’s math is matched by the delusional nature of his philosophy.

He was born with no silver spoon, he claims, except the silver spoon of being born in America.

Well, being born in America is surely an enormous advantage.

But consider what Mr. Romney does NOT consider a silver spoon:

“Romney was the son of a governor and an auto executive who gave him a wealth of connections, a private education, college tuition, a stock portfolio that he lived on while in graduate school, help buying a first house.”

Apparently, Romney thinks that had he been born Hispanic, his life would have been much easier.

Oh boo-hoo.

Last I looked, the financial industry, not noticeably underpaid, was filled with while males who are NOT Hispanic.

And their high incomes seem to have reflected no great competence on their part.

Indeed, the high incomes seem to have gone hand-in-hand  with extraordinary levels of incompetence and criminality.

The genetic downside of female higher education

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Alphagameplan compares the Iranian and the American approach to female higher education and concludes that the Iranian approach is more sustainable:

“The USA, and most of the West, has taken the approach that encouraging female participation in advanced education will strengthen their economies. Events have thus far failed to confirm those assumptions, and indeed, are increasingly calling them into question. That may be one reason Iran feels emboldened to take the opposite approach:

Iran will be cutting 77 fields of study from the female curriculum, making them male-only fields. Science and engineering are among those affected by the decree. ‘The Oil Industry University, which has several campuses across the country, says it will no longer accept female students at all, citing a lack of employer demand. Isfahan University provided a similar rationale for excluding women from its mining engineering degree, claiming 98% of female graduates ended up jobless.’ The announcement came soon after the release of statistics showing that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the sciences. Senior clerics in Iran’s theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women.”
According to the mainstream Western assumption, this should weaken Iran’s economy and impoverish its society. So, barring a war that will render any potential comparisons irrelevant, this move by Iran promises to make for an unusually informative societal experiment in comparison with the control group of the USA. If Iran sees non-immigrant-driven population growth along with greater societal wealth and scientific advancement, it will justify the doubts of those who questioned the idea that encouraging women to pursue science degrees instead of husbands and careers instead of children would prove beneficial to society at large.

Of course, the Iranian action presents a potentially effective means of solving the hypergamy problem presently beginning to affect college-educated women in the West. Only one-third of women in college today can reasonably expect to marry a man who is as well-educated as they are. History and present marital trends indicate that most of the remaining two-thirds will not marry rather than marry down. So, by refusing to permit women to pursue higher education, Iran is ensuring that the genes of two-thirds of its most genetically gifted women will survive in its gene pool.

No doubt the Iranian approach will sound abhorrent to many men and women alike. But consider it from a macro perspective. The USA is in well along the process of removing most of its prime female genetics from its gene pool as surely as if it took those women out and shot them before they reached breeding age. Which society’s future would you bet on, the one that is systematically eliminating the genes of its best and brightest women or the one that is intent upon retaining them?”

Anil Kumar’s dead lawyer or the small world of NY fixers

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The New York Times has a piece about the death of Robert Morvillo, who  happens to have been the attorney for Anil Kumar, the McKinsey manager, whose “cooperation” with the Federal investigation into the Galleon Group insider- trading ring, dragged down perhaps the highest rank manager ever to be so convicted. That was Anil Kumar’s mentor and one-time friend,  Rajat Gupta, three times director of global consulting behemoth McKinsey:

“Last spring, he represented Anil Kumar, a former senior executive at McKinsey & Company who was a key witness in the insider-trading trial of the former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.”

What made the case especially horrible, apart from appalling rulings from Judge Rakoff, was that so much of the charge of conspiracy made against Mr. Gupta relied on nothing more than circumstantial evidence and hearsay, in this case, the unreliable hearsay of Mr. Anil Kumar, a senior partner and director at McKinsey and a protege of the luckless Mr. Gupta.

Mr. Anil Kumar is a documented and admitted conspirator and criminal.

The Federal government rewarded him for his testimony by giving him probation.

If this “reward for cooperation” had been given by anyone outside the government, it would be called what it really is – bribery and perhaps suborning of perjury.

Meanwhile, we’ll never know what kind of bargaining went on between the government and Anil Kumar, because one crucial part of that history, his defense attorney, Robert Morvillo, is dead.

Curiously,  Morvillo’s death occurred in December 2011, which is just around the time that Rajat Gupta was demanding to see government files relating to the prosecutor’s deals with cooperating witnesses.

Those files were denied him by Judge Rakoff’s ruling, so the government’s not talking, either.

The ruling and others like it resulted in an erroneous verdict.

Based solely on flimsy evidence that should never have taken him to a federal criminal trial, Gupta now faces five years on the conspiracy charge and twenty years each on the three securities fraud counts (two of which pertain to a single alleged trade).

Adding to the complete media dereliction in this case, the newspapers have almost uniformly reported this incorrectly, claiming that Gupta only faces twenty years in total.

The truth is he faces 65 years in prison. Given that he is sixty-three years old, that is a life sentence.

In spite of itself, though, the  NY Times piece does do one good thing. It gives us a glimpse into the cozy web of connections between judges, defense lawyers, prosecutors, and corporations that has turned the courts into one of the most corrupt and tyrannical arms of the government:

“Mr. Morvillo was one of a group of lawyers who worked as federal prosecutors in the office in the 1960s under Robert M. Morgenthau’s leadership. He rose to become head of the office’s securities-fraud unit, which Mr. Morgenthau had formed. That unit, which had led to an increase in indictments against corporate executives, in turn created a need for white-collar defense. Later, Mr. Morvillo became chief of the office’s criminal division.

Today, many of the deans of New York’s criminal-defense bar, including Gary P. Naftalis and Charles A. Stillman, served with Mr. Morvillo as assistants under Mr. Morgenthau.”

To make the mix thicker, Judge Rakoff was a student of Morvillo’s:

“This past summer he was representing a defendant in a bribery case before Judge Rakoff, who as a federal prosecutor in the 1970s was supervised by Mr. Morvillo, then chief of the criminal division.”

The Manhattan D.A. also ended up a partner at Morvillo’s firm.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, was a partner at Morvillo Abramowitz for five years before his election in 2009.

Talk about a revolving door.

So Judge Rakoff, the presiding judge at the Galleon group trial,  is an old friend and junior colleague of the defense attorney, Morvillo,  whose firm is a cozy nest for ex-prosecutorial types.  The judge is also an old friend and colleague of  Rajat Gupta’s defense attorney, Gary Naftalis.

Naftalis, despite his stiff fees and reputation, actually failed to get even Judge Rakoff’s most ridiculous rulings overturned.

Robert Morvillo has a reputation, hinted at in the NY Times piece, as some kind of good guy.

But, if you read between the lines, another picture emerges.

What you see is a guy who, when he was working for government prosecutors,  begins a nifty racket. He starts going after the biggest corporate scalps.

The NY Times frames can frame this as a concern for equal justice.

But anyone familiar with the games prosecutors play knows that the are seamier reasons to pursue high-profile cases –  bigger targets add up to media clout for the prosecutor’s office, which adds up to bigger budgets, bigger salaries, and corporate or political office for an ambitious prosecutor.

“Ambitious prosecutor” would describe Rajat Gupta’s nemesis, Preet Bharara, the Indian-American (Sikh) prosecutor who took over the Galleon case, after B. J. Kang had laid all the ground work and was actually knocking on the door of the money0men who needed to be fingered – like mafia hedge-fund honcho, Steven Cohen.

The Cohen investigation mysteriously vanished off the table sometime in 2010, Kang vanished with it, and Batman Bharara shows up in full boot-strapping desi-wonderboy mode, going great guns after a relatively trivial expert-network run by dark-skinned yuppies yearning to play in the big-league with gora crooks.

This had zilch to do with the financial crisis, as even the gora crooks have admitted.

Thanks to Bharara, a product of the New Jersey political machine,  the prosecution of a whole bunch of South Asians, in lieu of the mostly Euro-Semitic criminals who actually scammed the markets, didn’t raise the suspicions it would have otherwise.

That’s how the game is played and knowing that gives us some insight into Mr. Morvillo and his ilk.

In essence, what Robert Morvillo did while a prosecutor was to create a market for highly-paid criminal defense attorneys. He did this by going after senior managers with a vengeance.

Then, when he left the government, he fulfilled that need…earning big bucks in the process.

Perhaps he was a good guy, as the Times suggests.

But, from what is in the Times piece, he doesn’t seem to have saved any corporate scalps in need of it.

He didn’t help Martha Stewart.

If anyone  deserved to have got off for  ridiculous over-prosecution it was Martha Stewart. But Morvillo lost her case.

Yet, he managed to save Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, even though, if there was anyone who deserved not to get off, it was Greenberg, whose decades-long shady dealings at AIG and CIA-related Starr are the stuff of legend among 9-11 researchers.

[to be continued]

Vox Day: Free trade often linked to war

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The provocative (some would use much harsher terms) Christian libertarian writer Vox Day pokes a hole in the venerable libertarian mantra –  free-trade uber alles:

“China and Japan have only been trading since diplomatic ties were normalized in 1972; China became Japan’s largest trading partner in 2004. A war between two of the world’s largest economies would permanently shatter the oft-heard argument that trade eliminates the possibility of war. It’s an argument that should always have been dubious, however, as England’s many wars against the various principalities in India and the USA’s Middle East wars have all followed the inception of large-scale trade with the region.

Once more, we see that free trade delivers precisely the opposite of what it promises. And, as Generational Dynamics adroitly points out, trade actually expands the range of warfare as well as providing an economic weapon that can be wielded against the trading partner. Even when trade is not a cause of the war, it provides a means of fighting it.

Lest anyone think I am setting up a strawman here, consider this article by a free trade advocate at the Mises Institute: “The Classical Liberals of the nineteenth century were certain that the end of the old Mercantilist system–with its government control of trade and commerce, its bounties (subsidies) and prohibitions on exports and imports–would open wide vistas for improving the material conditions of man through the internationalization of the system of division of labor. They also believed that the elimination of barriers to trade and the free intercourse among men would help to significantly reduce if not end the causes of war among nations.”

On the civilizational superiority of the West in regard to women…

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The article posted below should be read for the light it throws on the morals, manners, and breeding of some of New York’s most eminent and public financiers.

Wikipedia tells us:

“His father was a partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella LLP and general counsel for Williams-Sonoma. His mother is a historian. Loeb’s great-aunt, Ruth Handler, created the Barbie doll and co-founded Mattel Inc.[4]”

I do not know of a single financier born and bred in Asia who has ever engaged in this sort of thing.

Astute readers will note the close parallels between the type of invective used by this well-known, indeed, adulated financier, and the type used by the denizen of the underworld who has favored me with his obsession.

Note the nature of the victims – female, Gentile, working for/advocating positions antithetical to the interests of the colluding short-sellers.

Note the nature of the invective – scatological (queefs, farts, shit) and sexual (prostitutes,whores, bimbos, pimps); calculated to cause intense emotional and reputational injury by sheer association,  without offering  either reason or evidence, yet evading legal liability, under the West’s servile definition of freedom.

Notice how American “libertarians” (aka licensitarians), who find burqas objectionable, not only never voice any objection to this kind of barbarous public attack, they post the  self-serving rants of their perpetrators, with obvious pride in the association.

Such “liberty” shows itself to be nothing more than servility to the powerful and the malicious.

The very scurrility of the attacks assures this, since most ordinary people, especially women,  cannot/will not  counter with invective in kind, both from moral and prudential reasons.

Judd Bagley at Antisocialmedia.net:

“In late 2005, I spent over four hours interviewing Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne as part of a podcast series on entrepreneurship I created.

After I published the audio of the interview, somebody posted a link to it on the Yahoo Finance message board dedicated to Overstock.com.

Seeking the origin of the resulting surge in downloads led to my first stock message board visit.

It was really strange.

What first struck me was the flurry of responses to the original posts in which users with foul mouths and bad attitudes warned that the linked mp3s contained computer viruses.

Of course, no mp3 has ever carried a virus, as I’m fairly certain the posters knew.

These were followed up by all manner of lies meant to discourage others from listening to any of the three Byrne interviews I would eventually publish.

[Lila: And that is evidently the reason for Mr. Ryals’ verbal assaults against me and others. They are intended to thoroughly confuse and intimidate.]

Worse, they posted all manner of lies about Patrick Byrne personally – something I was in a unique position to recognize having just interviewed him at length.

Intrigued, I started examining the posting histories of the most prolific sources of this disinformation, trying to identify patterns that might in turn reveal their underlying motives and, often enough, their real identities……..

Consider the following notable example.

I’ve previously written about evidence received demonstrating that hedge fund Third Point, LLC contracted with convicted stock fraudster Michelle McDonough, whose duties included coordinating the efforts of message board bashers and inducing certain captured journalists to report negatively on targeted companies.

I’ve also written about Third Point founder Daniel Loeb’s well-known history of posting on the Yahoo and Silicon Investor stock message boards under the alias Mr. Pink.

Before getting to the rest of the story, here’s some background.

About the same time I first visited Yahoo Finance, a company called SFBC International (now PharmaNet Development Group) came under a blistering attack by Daniel Loeb, who very publicly announced Third Point’s sizeable short interest in the company.

SFBC got hit from all sides, and its share price withered.

In particular, there was a deluge of libelous (though tame compared to others I’ve seen) posts to Yahoo’s SBFC message board. Most notable were the attacks leveled against then-SFBC Chairwoman and President Lisa Krinsky.

Krinsky responded by filing a lawsuit against ten anonymous posters: Does 1 through 10.

In order to discover the identities of the ten Does, Yahoo was served with a subpoena.

In accordance with policy, Yahoo alerted the posters, giving them two weeks in which to contest the subpoena – an expensive proposition few bashers have the financial ability to pursue.

And indeed, none of the ten Does opted to put up a fight.

With one exception: Doe number 6, known on Yahoo Finance as Senor_Pinche_Wey (which is a slang Spanish term that is as obscene as you can imagine).

A typical post by Senor_Pinche_Wey reads:

…I will reciprocate [fellatio] with Lisa [Krinsky] even though she has fat thighs, a fake medical degree, “queefs” and has poor feminine hygiene…

Doe-6 fought the subpoena, was rejected, and appealed to California’s Sixth Appellate court.

Clearly, Doe-6 had some resources backing him up…to say nothing of a deep motivation not to be exposed.

And, fortunately for Doe-6, his appeal was successful and the subpoena was quashed.

This decision – handed down in February of this year – essentially affirms the First Amendment rights of message board bashers to say whatever they want about the officers of public companies. (An excellent analysis of the decision can be viewed here.)

In their decision, the Court noted:

We likewise conclude that the language of Doe 6’s posts, together with the surrounding circumstances — including the recent public attention to SFBC’s practices and the entire “SFCC” message-board discussion over a two-month period — compels the conclusion that the statements of which plaintiff complains are not actionable. Rather, they fall into the category of crude, satirical hyperbole which, while reflecting the immaturity of the speaker, constitute protected opinion under the First Amendment.

Interesting.

Daniel LoebReady for the other shoe to drop?

I’ve learned, through multiple sources, that the immature speaker in this case, Doe-6 (aka Senor_Pinche_Wey) was none other than Daniel Loeb himself.

As a matter of fact, Senor_Pinche_Wey is one of many abusive message board identities used by Loeb to harass officers of companies Third Point was shorting, often illegally.

On August 12, 2005, Patrick Byrne first publicly accused several hedge funds of working in coordination to illegally manipulate the share price of Overstock.com and many other small, public companies. Within 48 hours, armies of bashers arrived for the first time on the Overstock.com stock message boards across the web, all working off of a the same obvious set of talking points. Among the points these bashers took the greatest care to make, time and again: that Byrne was crazy for thinking that any two hedge funds would ever work together when shorting.

In case there are any doubts left regarding Byrne’s claims, I invite you to look at this message board exchange, between Senor_Pinche_Wey, LaseriumQueen, bobbingbargains, disgustedinvestor, kidstockjoec, jidoo, and Polytechnic_Trader.

What makes it so interesting is that at least 72% of the participants are hedge fund managers shorting the company they’re smearing.

Specifically, Senor_Pinche_Wey belongs to Daniel Loeb, while LaseriumQueen, bobbingbargains, disgustedinvestor, and kidstockjoec all belong to Robert Chapman, founder of hedge fund Chapman Capital.

Polytechnic_Trader and jidoo may or may not belong to Loeb or Chapman…I don’t know either way.

I do know that Chapman also posts under the aliases tautologicaltrader, ghaulty_lodgick, notably_absent, and herniatedgorilla – all of which can be seen, time after time, posting things I’m quite certain Chapman would not dare say in person.

Do hedge funds coordinate their attacks?

Yes.

And as you’ll read in a soon-to-be-published-post, message board bashing is only the beginning.”

[Lila: Based on my experience, I’d say that after the bashing, comes investigation, surveillance/monitoring, threats, and even physical stalking. In short, criminal behavior by criminals. What a shock.]

Mossad agents pose as American spies, recruit for war on Iran

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Christopher Bollyn (who increasingly proves his reliability as a researcher):

“A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.

Buried deep in the archives of America’s intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush’s administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives — what is commonly referred to as a “false flag” operation.
– “False Flag” by Mark Perry, Foreign Policy, 13 January 2012

When we looked back at all the things that had happened we felt that two things were unclear. First, if they are from NATO, why did they not meet with us in Afghanistan where they have bases and where they can contact us in a much more easy and secure manner. The second issue was that the first time they informed us that NATO forces wanted to meet with us we thought they were going to speak about eastern parts of Iran, because NATO forces are stationed in Afghanistan. But they insisted that we should transfer our operations from the eastern border region to the capital. We thought that this was very strange. When we thought about it we came to the conclusion that they are either Americans acting under NATO cover — or Israelis.
– Abdolmalek Rigi (1983 – 2010), founder of Jundallah in interview with Press TV (Iran)

Extracts from the article ‘Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA spies to recruit terrorists to fight against Iran’ in Ha’aretz (Israel), 13 January 2012:

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos. Foreign Policy’s Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

According to a currently serving U.S. intelligence officer, Perry reports, when Bush was briefed on the information he “went absolutely ballistic.”

Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.

According to the report, Israel’s recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials. “It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”

“The report sparked White House concerns that Israel’s program was putting Americans at risk,” the intelligence officer told Perry. “There’s no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we’re not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians.”

The intelligence officer said that the Bush administration continued to deal with the affair until the end of his term. He noted that Israel’s operation jeopardized the U.S. administration’s fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was under immense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah.

According to the intelligence officer, a senior administration official vowed to “take the gloves off” with Israel, but ultimately the U.S. did nothing.

“Israel is supposed to be working with us, not against us,” Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. “If they want to shed blood, it would help a lot if it was their blood and not ours. You know, they’re supposed to be a strategic asset. Well, guess what? There are a lot of people now, important people, who just don’t think that’s true.”

The following video by Russia Today features a 2010 interview with Webster Tarpley about the Iranian capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the founder and former commander-in-chief of the terrorist group Jundallah. As one might expect, Tarpley does not even mention Israel or Israelis as he blames the CIA and NATO for being behind the terror attacks of Jundallah (basing his claims on Seymour Hersh and ABC News, no less).  This is typical Tarpley, who protects the Zionist state by consistently ignoring evidence of Israeli involvement in acts of false-flag terrorism – like 9/11.  To understand what’s behind Tarpley’s pro-Israel bias, see my article “Webster Tarpley’s Disinfo” from January 2010.”

Johnny Cash: When The Man Comes Around

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When The Man Comes Around

– Johnny Cash

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder:
One of the four beasts saying: “Come and see.” And I saw.
And behold, a white horse.

There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.
An’ he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won’t be treated all the same.
There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up.
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.
For you partake of that last offered cup,
Or disappear into the potter’s ground.
When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin’.
Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum.
Voices callin’, voices cryin’.
Some are born an’ some are dyin’.
It’s Alpha’s and Omega’s Kingdom come.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Till Armageddon, no Shalam, no Shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home.
The wise men will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they’ll cast their golden crown.
When the man comes around.

Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still.
Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still.
Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still.
Listen to the words long written down, When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin’.
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettle drum.
Voices callin’, voices cryin’.
Some are born an’ some are dyin’.
It’s Alpha’s and Omega’s Kingdom come.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks.
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

In measured hundredweight and penny pound.
When the man comes around.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts,
And I looked and behold: a pale horse.
And his name, that sat on him, was Death.
And Hell followed with him.