Letterman Targeted in Extortion Plot By CBS News Employee

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Update: Favourite Letterman-blackmail quote so far is by Stephanie Gutman, at The Telegraph, UK:

“But this follows on the heels of the Travolta family extortion affair, so it points out one of the pitfalls of fame and wealth, that one is continually surrounded with a mosquito cloud of predators trying to draw blood. And even the creepiest, snarkiest, fake-sincere liberal talk show host gets my sympathy for having to live with that.”

In the news:

“Three weeks ago, Letterman said, he got in his car early in the morning and found a package with a letter saying, “I know that you do some terrible, terrible things and that I can prove that you do some terrible things.” He acknowledged the letter contained proof.
He said it was terrifying “because there’s something insidious about (it). Is he standing down there? Is he hiding under the car? Am I going to get a tap on the shoulder?”
Letterman said he called his lawyer to set up a meeting with the man, who threatened to write a screenplay and a book about Letterman unless he was given money. There were two subsequent meetings, with the man given a phony $2 million check at the last one. Letterman joked it was like the giant ceremonial check given to winners of golf tournaments.”
He told the audience that he had to testify before a grand jury on Thursday.
“I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family,” he said. “I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done.”
He said “the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would, especially for the women.”

My Comment:

What an irony (but not an oddity) that the comedian who was making vulgar jokes about Sarah Palin’s minor daughter – presumably, to prove how trashy the Palins are – has a history himself.

Letterman admitted to numbers of affairs with co-workers, while revealing a black-mail plot from another CBS news employee, whose name hasn’t been confirmed yet. It’s interesting that this critic of the Palins* – who’ve been married for years and who had children within their marriage – married his long-term girlfriend only in March this year, though he had a child with her in 2003.

This is not a judgment about Letterman’s lifestyle. That’s his business. It’s a judgment about his good sense and his psychological motivations. You’d think the man would zip up about anyone else’s family or sexual history.

File this away as another instance of the corruption of the media. In recent posts, I’ve talked about sexual blackmail as one way in which public figures are ruined or hounded out of office. We’ve had the example of Eliot Spitzer, most famously.

The other point to note is that the perpetrator is a newsman (and not just any newsman – an Emmy award winning CBS producer and crime reporter for “48 hours.”  Although this has nothing to do with the “deep capture” of the media in the financial story, it does add to the evidence that the media really is the problem, at every level. When reporters are so intent on making their names that they’re prepared to “out” public (or even less than public) figures over personal matters that are irrelevant to any public interest, why should we be surprised that one of them takes a more direct route and uses the information to make money from his target directly?

*Note: As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin’s but dislike the way she was treated.

More on Zerohedge at the NY Post

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New York Magazine posted this on Sept. 27th, the same day I posted on ZeroHedge and the questions being raised about its principal writer. The piece answers a question I had, which was when did Zerohedge begin blogging? Spring, 2008. That’s about two years after my Goldman pieces… and several months after my round up on Goldman’s sins on Lew Rockwell (“Paulson Putsch and The Financial Disappearing Act of 2008 – when I claimed that Goldman was siphoning off profits).

Notice that I have done a few blog posts on Zerohedge and its credibility, asking when it began, shortly before this piece (scroll down and check out the post):

“Last spring, in a far corner of the Internet, an unknown blogger began to piece together a conspiracy theory: The investment bank Goldman Sachs was using sophisticated, high-speed computers to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate trading profits from the New York Stock Exchange, invisibly undercutting the market and sidestepping the regulatory reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Only a few loyal readers paid attention to the blog called Zero Hedge, a no-frills site full of arcane analysis decipherable only by finance professionals. But when a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was arrested for allegedly stealing software codes used for the firm’s electronic trading arm, and a federal prosecutor was quoted saying the codes could be used to “manipulate markets in unfair ways,” the once-obscure blog ignited a chain reaction. While on a golf outing, an editor at the New York Times learned from a friend who worked on Wall Street that the Zero Hedge allegation was the talk of the industry, and an assignment ensued. On July 24, the Times published a front-page article on so-called high-frequency trading and its potential abuses, which in turn prompted Chuck Schumer, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, to draft a letter to the SEC that same day. Twelve days later, the SEC signaled that it was considering a ban on the very computerized trading that Zero Hedge had attacked….”

And, coincidentally, just after my long post on blogger credibility and naked short-selling, here’s Taibbi, with a HuffPo sneak peak at an upcoming piece on Goldman lobbying for “naked short selling.”

Well, he is on the money on that. It makes sense that GS would want naked short-selling to continue, via favored hedge funds. It’s the way the big boys control the market. Naked short-selling, as Taibbi correctly points out, is NOT short-selling.

We will forgive Taibbi for not attributing Byrne or anyone else, and also for profound ignorance about 9-11. Naked shorts have gotta go.

Meanwhile, Taibbi’s piece uses the term “captured” to describe the regulators being captive to the hedge funds. It’s curiously like  Byrne’s blog title, “Deep Capture.”

But with Taibbi, the focus shifts from the media’s subversion by the financial industry and centers more on the regulators’ subversion by the financiers.

How  is this important? One possible explanation: because increasing regulation is consonant with the establishment agenda. Exposing the media’s complicity with hedge funds isn’t. (Note: I think regulations are in order, but what kind, at what level, and with what safeguards against further corruption is the issue.. )

Correction (October 26): I’ve since had time to check more of Taibbi’s pieces and Byrne’s writing/interviews. It seems that in fact Byrne is mentioned far down in Taibbi’s piece – but not Bagley or Mitchell (which some might say is fair enough). Also, Byrne comes from a minarchist rather than a purely libertarian position, so that he too is interested in regulatory capture. In which case, Taibbi’s emphasis on the term seems in keeping with his sources and doesn’t constitute a “shift,” as I argued above.

It Takes a Woman….

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Sometimes identity does matter. I notice that in all the public commentary from France on Polanski, only a woman took into account the feelings and wishes of the victim:

“Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was one of the few leading figures here to mention Polanski’s victim in her appraisal of Polanski’s case. The former justice minister said it “poses a problem” that the U.S. is still seeking his extradition – since Geimer herself wants to move on…”

For me, the issue is one of privacy – intrusion into both Polanski’s and Samantha G.’s privacy, at a point when any public interest in the matter has vanished long decades ago. Polanski’s “genius” is irrelevant or very little relevant; American puritanism is even less relevant. Americans are free to be as puritanical as they wish to be.

The State and Pedocide

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More extensive child abuse than any committed by Polanski is the child abuse committed by Madeleine Albright:

“Did Maddow ask about Albright’s help in the starvation of a million Iraqis because of Saddam Hussein’s “WMDs”? Nope. Her statement that the killing of 400,000 Iraqi children through murderous Bush I-Clinton I sanctions was “worth it”? Nope. Meanwhile, Albright hopes to help kill Iranian children and adults because of Iranian “WMDs,” and Maddow is helping her. Can you believe I was dumb enough, when I listened to her old radio show, to think Maddow was pro-peace? Is she a neocon like Albright? No. Like virtually all progressives, she is a bloodthirsty warmonger when the Democrats do the murder.”

Blog post from Lew Rockwell.

My Comment

I’d correct the “all progressives” part. I think many progressives were unhappy with the sanctions, but didn’t know where else to go but the Democrat party. They’re just not convinced that the right is sufficiently critical of the corporate part of the corporate-state. I’ve always thought Rachel Maddow was smart. But she’s too much a part of the academic-government complex to criticize it effectively.

Genesis On the Resource Wars…

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From the Parsha of Toldot (Genesis 25: 19 -28:9)

“Isaac has now moved into the valley of Gerar (meaning: Lodging Place) and settled his family. Here alone I believe we can stop and look at what he has gone through. Surely we can say this was a man of faith. He had to believe that the L-rd truly intended to bless him as He had his father Abraham. Isaac demonstrated patience by never giving up on G-d, for the birth of his heirs. He trusted in the midst of a famine that the land he was led to would be blessed. He even had to trust, that now, as he was being “forced” from the land where he became so wealthy, that G-d still was faithful to keep His promises. We know that Abraham was a man of faith but likewise so was Isaac. Yet, it’s still not here where our lesson stems. It is in the land where Isaac has now settled, in the valley.

Isaac is in this valley, the very same place his father had been years before Isaac’s birth. Isaac now decides to re-dig the wells his father had once dug. He even intended to give each the same name his father had given to each. These wells had to be restored, because after the death of Abraham, the Philistines had sealed off all of the wells that Abraham had dug. As the servants of Isaac dug and discovered water, the herdsmen of the valley began to quarrel with Isaac’s men. These men demanded that the water of this new well belonged to them. This quarrel led Isaac to name the well Esek, which means “contention”. However, instead of stewing over or forcing his way into ownership of this well he moves on to dig another. Again, there is another argument of this the second well. Once more the long-suffering character of Isaac, which was formed through his twenty years of waiting on the L-rd for children, through his stay with the Philistines and here in the “lodging place”, becomes evident. Instead of arguing over this second well he leaves it as well and calls it Sitnah which means “enmity”. Many of us may be tempted to quit at this point and submit ourselves to the task of just trying to make as little stir as possible and not run the risk of having our work stolen from us again. Not Isaac.

Just when it seems as though every well Isaac seeks to dig will be stolen by the people of the valley, his servants dig another well. Isaac doesn’t stop and think what if I dig this well and they come and take it from me again. Instead, he decides he will dig once more. If the L-rd has blessed him then no man can stop that blessing. Isaac’s faith further deepened his resolve to go out and dig one more time. It is this well where, finally, no conflict arises……”

My Comment

And likewise with inventing or writing or starting a business….

The libertarian way is to move on, realizing that the answer to a fight over resources or markets (or attribution), is to move to a new place. It’s also the thesis of a popular business book, The Blue Ocean Strategy

Unlike Malthusians or Marxists, the true free marketer (unlike the opportunistic free marketer) recognizes that neither resources nor markets nor credit are really limited (they might sometimes seem to be) and that only the uncreative needs to poach.

Cow College Versus Ivy League

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I’ve been thinking about the psychological roots of the anger between the two parties.
It’s not simply political, that’s clear. It’s ethnic, demographic, geographical and many other things that have been explored by a lot of people.

One element that hasn’t attracted that much attention though is one that’s always struck me quite strongly – the anger directed toward people with Ivy League or elite school educations by those who attended humbler schools. The “cows and the ivies” is where some of the class-warfare of today is played out.

We hear a lot about how the poor and middle-class envy the rich, but I’m not thoroughly convinced by the thesis. Most of the people I’ve talked to seem to admire the rich in the most uncritical sort of way. They ape their life styles as best they can. And they ascribe to rich people all sorts of virtues they think they lack themselves, when in point of fact, great wealth (I’m talking about tens of millions and more) is usually the result of many other things besides hard work and skill. It also takes luck, contacts, and some money to start with. It takes a certain kind of personality – a not very admirable one, often. Everyone knows Balzac’s line about there being no great fortune without a crime behind it..

The truth is money alone doesn’t confer enough status to provoke envy. Who envies a rich garbage man? No one.

And no one envies bankers these days, no matter that they keep making money. They’ve lost their status. It’s status that provokes envy.

And today, the most obvious and common insignia of status is graduating from an elite school. The left side of the political spectrum is associated, rightly or wrongly, with the high status universities – with Ivies like Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Wellesley – as well as with all the other universities, which, though not Ivy, are considered elite, such as, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Chicago, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or Wellesley. Cornell.

On the elite list are also some public universities, like Berkeley, and a couple of more conservative schools, like Chicago and Dartmouth.

But, in general, the elite schools are associated with liberal-left politics and with internationalism. The cow-colleges (and we’re fond of cows ourselves) have become the terrain of a kind of chip-on-the-shoulder nationalism and conservatism (of course, I’m simplifying this terribly).

This leads to a lot of hilarious posturing by the cow crowd – about effete elites (read Boston Brahmins, Jews), decadence (not sure what that’s supposed to mean – perhaps feminists and homosexuals?), affirmative action (read, Hispanics and Blacks) etc. etc. – although by and large these schools are as – or more – likely to have middle-class students than the state universities. And though affirmative action – if one were to include women and legacy students – surely benefited whites far more than it ever did non-whites.

I recently came across an example of this envy in a bit of resume-massaging. Someone who studied at a locally respectable state university (Georgia State), was a very mediocre student (C’s and low B’s), and then paid for a year’s study at Oxford – or was it at Heidelberg? (something anyone with money can do), inverted the order of their studies on their resume thus:

“Studied politics at Oxford and at Georgia State…”

This mean little ruse gives the false impression that the student was admitted competitively to the rigorously selective undergraduate program at Oxford – an academic achievement of a much higher caliber than mere attendance.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that the Georgia State student might not be smart or might not do very well in life. He might. But the deception betrays a certain envy – the same envy that, unfortunately, I detect in some of the populist hatred of liberal “elites.”

I say that objectively, since I’ve no great love for those elites myself. But I have even less love for the anti-intellectualism of some parts of the right. For its open contempt for scholarship, intellectual striving, cosmopolitan sympathies, and international standards – things that to me are the essence of decent liberalism.

That’s the kind of liberalism with which I have no quarrel, no matter if its politics differs from mine. No matter if it embraces the state more than I do. I am any day closer to that liberalism than to the yahoo know-nothing right.

And, as always, the ever insightful – if often spiteful – Anne Coulter manages to find an example of the envy I’m talking about not in a conservative, but in the kind of liberal I don’t like – Keith Olberman.

Quote:

“Finally, you can stop pretending that you went to the hard-to-get-into Cornell.
Now you won’t have to quickly change the subject whenever people idly remark that they didn’t know it was possible to major in “communications” at an Ivy League school. No longer will you have to aggressively bring up Cornell when it has nothing to do with the conversation. Relax, Keith. Now you can let people like you for you.”

That’s on Olbermann’s constant derision of cow-college graduates and his name-dropping about the “Ivy” he went to, when he actually studied “communications” at the agricultural school affiliated to Cornell.

Update: Correction. Cornell contradicts Anne Coulter’s description of Olbermann’s alma mater.

Here is a latter written to someone who asked about the criticism:

Dear Tammie,

Many people have contacted us about the false and negative statements about Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences being made by Ann Coulter in the media recently.

Cornell as a whole–and all of its colleges–are considered “Ivy League.” The term “Ivy League” was initially used by sportswriters, and became the official name in 1954 of the NCAA Division I athletic conference to which Cornell belongs. The “Ancient Eight” are Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and Harvard. Additionally, CALS admits 1 out of every 5 applicants, as does the College of Arts & Sciences.

Please feel free to watch Mr. Olbermann’s response on his Countdown show at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/29539156#29539156

Thank you for your concern about the College.

Sincerely,

Ellen Leventry
Web Communications Specialist
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University

Apologies. Ms. Coulter was apparently off-base on that. Hmm. Why am I not surprised? But her larger point stands, I believe.

Blogger Credibility…(links added, updated, correction)

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I. A Question About Zerohedge:

Felix Salmon raises some questions about the blog, Zerohedge, which rose to swift prominence recently, following the TARP bail-out.

He notes that one of the principals, Daniel Ivandjiiksy has a record of insider trading.

I hardly think that this undermines the credibility of what Zerohedge posts. A drunk driving violation doesn’t disqualify you from credibly digging up information on auto industry lobbying. What’s more germane to my mind is the fact that none of these bloggers seem to have been so visible before the Goldman-AIG bailout story broke (ahem…taking a bow here..). Is that coincidental? Perhaps.

II. Other Bloggers:

Here are some of the bloggers or names that have suddenly become attached to the story – Max Keiser, Goldman666, Matt Taibbi, Zerohedge.

They’ve all contributed a lot of legitimate material. But one thing strikes me as odd. None of these names were notable for critiquing any of the main culprits of the financial crisis, before September 2008. But now they’re the blogosphere’s leading voices on the kleptocrats.

Yet, Taibbi, as I’ve noted, isn’t all that informed about a number of things. And in some of his writing, at least, seems to be steering opinion away from what I consider the prime suspects. I initially thought he might be spreading a bit of disinformation. Now, I wonder if it’s just that he doesn’t know enough. In any case, they’ve all done good and useful work that I hope won’t be discounted because of occasional slip-ups.

Even if individual posts or documents are unreliable, vetting from the blogosphere should keep everyone honest.

Note: In relation to the attacks on my own credibility by a pseudonymous stalker, Tony R, here is a link to a settlement with the NASD (the securities dealers association).

Correction: Villasenor denies that he is the same as Tony R. I’ll accept his denial, though both he and TR use the same message boards, employ the same invective, use multiple aliases – some of them overlapping or very close – and both attack the same figures.

Villasenor Ry–ls continuously slanders me with accusations that I’m a “stock fraudster.” The only reason he gives is that I co-wrote “Mobs” with a financial newsletter publisher, one of whose innumerable publications has fallen afoul of the SEC, and some of whose associates have had admittedly very questionable histories. (I’ve blogged about them before). But none of them ever had any kind of contact with me. So why the persistent posting (since 2007)?

Villasenor Ry–ls seems to have been a reader of mine who thought I was on the far left side of the political spectrum, and became incensed when he found I was a supporter of Ron Paul instead. Having seen some of his rants before I’d taken up the book project, I briefly questioned him about them. I found his responses incoherent, so I went ahead and wrote the book. That seems to have set him off.

Scroll down the webpage I’ve copied below, and you’ll see his real name, Roberto G. Villasenor. (He has scores of aliases). [Correction: Villasenor denies that he is Ry_ls. Both use multiple aliases, both post on similar issues, in similar venues, both have been attacked for libel, both are traders/speculators, so it was an error, it was a good faith one, easily made, I think, unless one were familiar enough with the stock underworld to tell all these characters apart at once]

Villasenor’s Ry–s role in the “captured media” story (the thesis that Wall Street media coverage is manipulated by powerful financiers) is a minor one and can be found at Patrick Byrne’s Deep Capture blog, one of the main advocates of that thesis. It’s a bit role in the story of the ‘Easter Bunny’ (the character who, Byrne says, first drew his attention to the naked-shorting businesss). Byrne deserves a great deal of credit for going after the story early on, despite brickbats, and for detailing exactly how the  Russian-Jewish mafia came to Wall Street.

[Note: Byrne’s company, Overstock, an internet discount retailer, has again come under investigation by the SEC. Byrne thinks that it’s retaliation for his campaign against naked short-selling].

On the other hand, Gary Weiss, a former Forbes journalist and perpetual sparring partner of Byrnes’, says that the Overstock investigation is legitimate. He says it proves that Byrne was all along using his Wall Street short-selling-conspiracy campaign to divert attention from his own massaging of company earnings. Weiss and Sam Antar (a convict turned white-collar crime fighter, who has criticized Overstock’s accounting) argue that Byrne harasses his critics over personal matters.

[Both sides seem to make some good points, but on the issue of personal attacks, neither side comes off well. There’s stuff that’s fair game for criticism. There’s other stuff – family or medical matters, physical appearance, sexual history – that shouldn’t be, because they’re completely irrelevant to the issue – financial fraud. Some of the back and forth ends up being plain nasty].

To return to the story of my web-stalker, Villasenor is also connected to an allegedly extortionist website that has shady connections. I don’t want to get into all that here, though. (this is Villasenor but it’s not R__ls)

[Update: I just got a critical comment from this website, claiming that “extortionist” is not accurate. I deleted the comment, because in my post I’ve used the word “alleged”; my focus is on Villasenor’s activities, not on the website. Nonetheless,  I’ve now added a link to back up the term, “extortionist”].

Where does Villasenor Ry–ls write about his targets? Apparently from Guatemala, hiding out in a hut. Being penniless, unemployed, and on the run from whoever is suing him for libel this time round (as you can guess, he gets sued a lot), he spends all his time posting long screeds on Indymedia, which has no standard about what it’ll publish.

Other journalists whom he’s latched onto in his screeds include well-known members of the major media, like Carol Remond, Roddy Boyd, Jesse Eisinger, Christopher Byron, Gary Weiss. You can see their names, as well as private correspondence of theirs, posted publicly by Ry__s Villasenor. This strongly suggests a degree of attention-seeking.

As an example of his activities, Villasenor has also attacked a CEO named Michael Zwebner for stock-pumping. Zwebner sued him several times and seems to have lost, as he was likely to under US law, which requires the plaintiff to establish “malice” – something quite hard to do. Still, I know nothing about the merits of the case. I’m merely pointing out that Villasenor has a history of attacking people.

[Correction: Villasenor has indeed attacked Zwebner, but not, apparently, Ry__s]

Before that, Villasenor Ry__s also used to post on Amr Elgindy’s message board – Elgindy being a near-legendary Wall Street fraudster involved in naked shorting and also in the 9-11 story.

I’m guessing that might be the reason that Villasenor Ry__s defends naked shorting and claims its critics are people with vested interests in laundering money – penny-stock pumpers, for instance.

Having read through nearly all his extremely involved statements (some achievement, as they go into hundreds of webpages), I’ve come to the conclusion that some parts of his rants are not beyond credibility, even though is he isn’t the most credible person to be making those points.

For instance, it’s certainly true that there is a lot of money being laundered through the stock market, and that penny-stock pumping is one avenue. It’s also obvious that Cox and the SEC didn’t do their jobs – whether as part of an overarching conspiracy is something that has to be established. I suspect that the venture capital firm the CIA set up in the 1990s – In-Q-Tel, which I’ve mentioned in my book on Abu Ghraib – might have some connections that are also worth pursuing. And off-shore firms and banks play a large role in what’s happened over the last 25 years. All that is true.

But whatever accurate moments Villasenor’s Ry__s’ rants have, they get muddied by his tendency to attack anyone who’s ever crossed his path, even casually, and weave them all into a galactic conspiracy directed at his trading/speculating losses.

Well, even as an amateur, I’ve probably lost more than he has. And for a sometime school-teacher, that’s a lot. But I don’t blame anyone for those losses except myself.

Yes, the market is rigged. Yes, it’s manipulated. Yes, it’s not your fault and yes, you got conned. But those are factual truths. In trading, you have to learn to deal with emotional truths, which are different things. The emotional truth you have to “own” is that it’s always your fault…no matter how much it isn’t. That’s the only road to mastery.

Update:

I’ve pasted a copy of the message-board that alleges that Rip-Off Report is associated with extortion. I’m pasting the whole page, in case the link gets lost. As you can see from it, Villasenor, is/has been charged with racketeering, conspiracy, invasion of privacy, defamation and other crimes (you can verify by googling Roberto G Villasenor and NASD, as well as Villasenor and Zwebner, and also any of Villasenor’s aliases – which are variations on wolfblitzer, pin, worm, and many others. I’m not mentioning his most frequent alias, because any time it’s mentioned he shows up on this blog and starts spamming me and reduplicating his posts all over the web.

1. FALSE: I attended Freedom Fest (TRUE: I did not attend and never have attended, although I fail to see why that’s a crime, even if I did)

2. FALSE: I have sold stock (TRUE: I never have. You need a license to sell stock and I don’t have one, nor am I interested in getting one. I only trade my my own savings – and that, rather infrequently. I did research Goldman Sachs, with the intention of using that material in “Mobs,” but that was vetoed and I turned the research into an investment report, suggesting shorting GS. I didn’t own GS at the time, have never owned it, and didn’t know anyone else who owned it. I advocated shorting it because I thought it was a corrupt company, knee-high in derivative contracts – and I was proved quite correct. I later turned that into a story that was used by my co-author’s company. The research on that is thorough and I stand by it. The report was later sold by the company under someone else’s name without my permission – that was one of many things that led to my leaving. I had no say in any of that. Besides some very brief analyses (a few paragraphs) of the Indian market where I recommended nothing I held (or anyone I knew held), that is the extent of my involvement with recommending anything in a newsletter. You can find that writing on my blog and check for yourself).

3. FALSE: I am closely associated with/covering for Porter Stansberry, James Davidson, Mark Skousen.

(TRUE: They are associates of my co-author’s. I do not know them except by hearsay and was quite critical of two of them to senior people – to my detriment – and on this blog. I’ve been blurbed by left-wing writers like Ward Churchill and I don’t know them personally either).

4. FALSE: I wasn’t born in India (TRUE: I was born there and completed my first two university degrees there. I speak two Indian languages and return there frequently. Most of my family lives there).

5. FALSE: I am concealing my birth-date because I’m a fraud (TRUE: Revealing personal information on the net exposes you to frauds/threats of all kinds. It’s sensible to put the minimum possible out in public).

4. FALSE: I am “covering” for the company. (TRUE: I have never “covered” for any one. I asked about the Stansberry case, as well as about Davidson, at the time I was approached to help write the book. I was told by two senior people that the problems were in other divisions and in the past, and I would have no involvement with them. I did my work almost completely over the net and was most of the time out of the country. I have several times expressed my dislike of the “hard-selling” employed by some newsletters published by the company. I have criticized that, and other things, not only directly to senior people, but also in my blog posts. I have suffered the consequences for that in my career. I do not think more can be asked from a citizen journalist. After having left the company in 2007, I came across published material on the web that confirmed that I was right to leave. In so far as that material has any relation to my own interests as a citizen journalist, I have posted it. Beyond that, it would be both incorrect and injudicious for me to venture, for many reasons that would be immediately apparent to anyone with an ounce of intelligence or integrity).

5. FALSE: I am “pretending to fight Byrne.” (TRUE: My posts support Byrne’s findings, as they confirm my own research into the engineering of media coverage. I have, however, criticized some of the tactics he’s used to go after his critics. That’s in keeping with my general dislike for “personal attacks” on the web that use material that’s irrelevant to the public interest involved. I cannot “fight” anyone over subjects I cannot verify or disprove. I believe (with Byrne) that naked short-selling had a serious role in the financial crisis. I also believe (with Byrne’s critics) that the market is used to launder money. That opposition roughly coincides to Republican-Democrat, and as always, both sides seem to have got different parts of the story right. Which of the two is the more important part, I don’t know).

*****
WEBSITE POST
Google search 9/29/09

From: edmagedson@ripoffreport.com
Subject: Group of Criminals behind ripoffreport (badbusinessbureau) and easybackgroundcheck (modelingscams)
Date: 16 Jun 2005 13:52:03 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/3U.2ADE/1636

Message Board Post:

Ed Magedson demanded over $50,000 from a company that is also suing him and the Rip-Off Report
Ed Magedson demanded $5,000 from a small business owner in return for a positive testimonial.
Complaint filed by an Arizona law firm that was victimized by the same Rip-Off Report extortion scheme.

Criminal Ed Magedson is working with the group of criminals that formed the easybackgroundcheck aka modelingscams

List of companies paying extortion money –
Consumer Health Network
National Health Network
World Benefits
National Grants
Incredible Discoveries
MVI – Mini Vacations
Harvard Professional Group
Alyon

Group of Criminals behind ripoffreport (badbusinessbureau) and easybackgroundcheck (modelingscams) –
Ed Magedson – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation
Les Henderson – Under the guise of helping protect her from “scam” companies he tries to lure a 17 year old girl to his hotel room to do coke
Edward Bloedow – has convictions for flashing women (misdemeanor) and receiving stolen goods (felony)
Frank Torelli – is so afraid his lies, conspiratorial and illegal activities will eventually catch up with him he never discloses his whereabouts
William Rosenberger – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Madelene Rosenberger – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Roberto Villasenor Jr. – Conspiracy and Racketeering (RICO) proceedings as well as claims for defamation and invasion of privacy filed
Stephen Howe
Michael Potter – attorney in California who acts as a front for Bloedow and Noll
Klaas DeVries Jr. – named in RICO lawsuit filed with FBI and U.S. Attorney General’s office
Ted Peterson
Stick Bogart
Robert Kirchman
Pamela Kirchman
Amr Elgindy- FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office link Easy background Check Founder Amr El-Gindy (along with Criminal Les Henderson) to 9-11.
Robert Noll – owner of Monster Talent management an unlicensed photo mill in California
Patricia Gewartowski- under investigation by federal authorities for revealing confidential financial information to criminal Frank Torelli and Criminal Les Henderson

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Uruguay Cost of Living

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Is Uruguay first world living at third world prices, as some of the less accurate newsletters will tell you?
Don’t believe it.

In some cases, you’re paying less than US prices, but remember that that’s cheap only to dollar holders. People who make the average Uruguay salary- about a quarter of what they’d earn in the US – aren’t going to find it cheap at all. In other cases (supermarket processed food, for example), you’re actually paying more than in the US. In the case of electronics or clothes, you’ll be paying considerably more.

To give you an idea, here’s a link to a site (in Spanish), where you can see uptodate prices.
It’s at the Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas –Sistema de Información de Precios al Consumidor

Eggs, as you can see, are expensive – equal to or higher than in the US. In a country of farms that’s a bit of a mystery to me. Chips, crackers, cereal and orange juice are also expensive.

However, if you go to the street stalls and buy vegetables, you’ll find them cheaper.

Services in general are cheaper. Which means what? I hate to tell you. It means that labor is overpaid in the US – relative to the world market, at least.