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Bob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog

Author: bobo Created: 1/10/2006 10:09 AM
This blog is dedicated to Bob O'Brien's Sanity Check editorials, and discussions about the Market Reform Movement, the SEC, failing to deliver/naked shorting, etc. It was created so that his many detractors and fans can tell him that he is full of it, correct his mistakes, rant and rave, kowtow, preen, or whatever seems appropriate. The only sins are being boring, or inarticulate, or dim. Humorous pieces can be found in the new Funny Bunny Blog area above, for a lighter-hearted take on being a bunny. Older Bobo blogs can be viewed by selecting a month under the calendar to your right.


The Contest To End All Contests
By bobo on 6/25/2008 8:46 AM
Patrick has created a contest with serious money behind it, to create awareness of Mark Mitchell's stupendous piece chronicling the entire saga of NSS, and our roles in the drama.
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A Random Collection Of Observations On The Decline Of American Civilization
By bobo on 6/14/2008 6:36 AM
And that was my optimistic working title....
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New SEC Rule Should Be Titled, "No More Suing The Prime Brokers" Rule...
By bobo on 5/20/2008 6:12 AM
The SEC, incapable of ending the rampant manipulation arising from the market maker exemption in Reg SHO, and which has stonewalled the NIPC petition cataloging the host of Federal securities laws being violated by their treatment of securities entitlements, can't rush a rule through fast enough to limit the liability of their paymasters at the prime brokers....
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The Greatest Story Ever Told...or at least a hell of a ride described in extraordinary detail - this is the big one, folks
By bobo on 5/6/2008 1:07 PM
For years, I have known and understood an awful lot of what is contained in the story you are about to read. I've alluded to bits and pieces of it, but now the whole shooting match is out in the open.
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A Suggested Comment Letter on the Latest SEC Absurdity - Proposed Rule S7-08-08
By bobo on 4/20/2008 8:36 PM
Yet another rule that does nothing to actually solve the NSS problem, and yet drapes itself in intent and sanctimony...
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NIPC Petition Now Up At SEC Site, Comments Needed
By bobo on 4/9/2008 3:34 PM
The NIPC Petition is now up at SEC.Gov, and we need everyone to go post comments to show some support here.
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National Investor Protection Coalition (formerly NCANS) Issues Landmark Petition to the SEC
By bobo on 4/3/2008 4:09 PM
The NIPC Petition is the final word on the sleight of hand the SEC has attempted, so that Wall Street can rip off investors with impunity.
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Bear Bailout, and What It Really Means
By bobo on 3/15/2008 11:12 PM
So, why did the nation's central bank approve a bailout for a non-member, non-bank? Curiouser and curiouser...
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New Patrick Byrne Podcast/Interview a Must Listen
By bobo on 3/12/2008 4:41 AM
Patrick is interviewed by The Register, and discusses NSS, Wikipedia, and a host of other interesting topics.
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Odds and Ends - Time Marches On
By bobo on 2/23/2008 10:14 PM
Some news and ruminations about the market, and NCANS
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World Coming To End, Film At 11
By bobo on 2/6/2008 9:54 AM
Is it just me, or is this the greatest crisis in confidence in Wall Street and the American banking system of our lifetime?
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Things that make you go, "Huh"...
By bobo on 1/15/2008 11:20 PM
Is that bad, when megabanks are putting their prime brokerages on the market? Too hot in the kitchen? Not as easy to steal a nation's wealth as it once was?
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Happy New Year - why I am optimistic....
By bobo on 1/8/2008 10:08 PM
It's a time of re-invention, right? Clocks reset, and a new horizon presents, and we are only limited by our imaginations......
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Judge Decides American Juries Too Stupid To Know Right From Wrong
By bobo on 12/20/2007 11:17 AM
While it is hard to argue that the average American isn't particularly gifted in terms of understanding the intricacies of securities law, one judge has decided that juries are too dim to differentiate criminal misconduct from playing by the rules...
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NY Times Tries To Get In Front Of The GAO's Harsh SEC Report
By bobo on 12/16/2007 6:25 PM
In a classic bit of trying to control the spin of seriously bad news, the NY Times does it's best to soften the blow of a report that basically shows the SEC to be completely incompetent to regulate the sale of ice water, much less the US markets...
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Lenin: Repeat A Lie Often Enough....
By bobo on 12/6/2007 3:03 PM
A stunning article in the Register (UK of course, as the US doesn't seem to allow real journalism anymore) outlines how Gary Weiss is part of the massive confidence game being run at Wikipedia, to control the spin of articles on Naked Short Selling
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A Refresher For Those Easily Distracted By Flashing Lights and Loud Noises - UPDATED 12/4
By bobo on 12/1/2007 7:49 AM
I was asked the other day to summarize things for someone who wanted a brief explanation of why this isn't just a small problem that we don't need to be worried about.
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Bethany, I Feel Like I've Nurtured A Viper At My Breast
By bobo on 11/28/2007 10:49 AM
In the continuing parade of captured journalists, Bethany makes a bid for the star spot of suck-up of the year. It's a crowded field, with all the NY fishwraps working fast and furious, however her latest certainly should place her in the final round.
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What's $192 Billion in Fails to Deliver and Receive Among Friends?
By bobo on 11/19/2007 11:24 AM
I mean, it's not like hiding the size of the delivery failure problem behind a wall of rhetoric is self serving for the securities industry, or anything?
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The Most Important Thing You Will Hear This Year
By bobo on 11/2/2007 10:50 AM
Everyone who wants to understand why the US market system is as compromised as an Afghani customs agent needs to set aside some time and listen to this landmark presentation.
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It's All About Free Speech!!! Er, Or, Maybe It Is That Patrick Is A Crook, Or A Kook...!?
By bobo on 11/1/2007 6:46 PM
What's particularly amusing to me is how the Gradient/Rocker matter was supposedly all about free speech, but now that the Supreme Court laughed that out of the room, now it is that Patrick is a, well, really bad man....
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Rico. Suave. Wheel of Justice Grinding Away...
By bobo on 10/23/2007 1:57 PM
Is it a problem when you are trying to get the suit against you thrown out, uh, you know, because, uh, well, you say it's all a pack of filthy lies....and the judge slaps you down like an errant schoolgirl?
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What we have heah, suh, is a failyuh to communicaate.
By bobo on 10/4/2007 5:21 PM
Patrick and Patch write stunningly clear comment letters indicating why the MM exemption is unnecessary, and actively harms equity investors. Of course, the SEC has little or no interest in any of that, preferring to stall any meaningful reforms for as long as possible....
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Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men
By bobo on 9/29/2007 7:54 PM
Is it just me, or does the industry hate the 1934 Act so much it can't even bear to mention it in its comment letters to the SEC?
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NCANS site to be integrated into this site
By bobo on 9/24/2007 7:11 AM
We decided to incorporate the NCANS material into this site, as it was a duplication of effort to keep both sites active.
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Weiss Charged with Felonies, Gradient Sings Anthem While Losing Stalling Ploy
By bobo on 9/19/2007 6:25 PM
Milberg Weiss partner Mel Weiss is charged with being a bad bad man, and Gradient and Rocker prepare to free themselves of the cumbersome burden of secrecy - before a jury. Not for want of trying to weasel out of it, though....
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NCANS Letter Posted At SEC Site, SEC Officially Screwing Everyone But Wall Street
By bobo on 9/18/2007 5:35 AM
NCANS' comment letter calling for the immediate elimination of the Market Maker exemption is now up, as are several from the industry bemoaning how much activity will slow in heavily manipulated stocks. And the GAO releases a report basically indicating the SEC is doing squat for investors, and actively harming those it investigates.
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Patrick Creates The Ultimate Series on Captured Regulators and the Market's Folly
By bobo on 9/6/2007 1:53 PM
If you only read one thing this year about the issues surrounding the stock market, the delivery failure crisis, the meltdown in our capital markets, etc. it should be this series.
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Important comment letter for the SEC
By bobo on 8/23/2007 3:37 AM
If you want to do something about the SEC's delay in eliminating the MM exception, which allows the options MM to naked short to their heart's content, legally, here's the template of a simple comment letter you can send. UPDATE: SIGNS THAT THE MELTDOWN COMMETH
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Don't worry, everything is fine, it's all just a little out of hand, is all....
By bobo on 8/14/2007 3:41 PM
As the financial markets melt down and liquidity evaporates from the system, a lone voice of reason (actually several, if you count Patrick and I) discusses why human nature ensures another meltdown commeth...
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Grandfather Clause Dead - And.....Now What?
By bobo on 8/7/2007 11:03 AM
Pardon my cynicism, but if the SEC had simply tried to appear to do something meaningful, while actually doing the least humanly possible, how would that have looked any different than this latest farce?
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Last one out, turn out the lights.
By bobo on 8/5/2007 7:29 PM
If the American experiment is based upon a foundation of the triumph of capitalism, the next week could well signal the end of the experiment.
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It really is the end of the world as we know it.....
By bobo on 8/4/2007 9:01 AM
I've been saying for some time that the prime brokers and hedge funds are creating systemic risk that the taxpayer will ultimately be forced to pay for, and that the SEC is a sham entity that does nothing but run interference for Wall Street and the financial elite, at the direct expense of investors. Whadda ya know, now, years after taking this position and backing my mouth with hundreds of blogs, the NY choagie crowd starts to "discover" this....
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Cramer, AKA Dr. Obvioso, proclaims that the markets are rigged and bent!
By bobo on 7/28/2007 5:45 PM
Kind of like someone admitting that gravity exists, Jimbo tickles us all, and the bunny asks, why this, why now?
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Remarkable Speech By Senator Bennett
By bobo on 7/22/2007 5:40 AM
For the, "There is no naked short selling problem" crowd, here's a speech Senator Bennett made on the floor calling for a hearing on NSS.
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Prime Brokers Kicked in Throat By California Court, Now All Shall Be Known
By bobo on 7/18/2007 3:46 AM
Apparently the CA court wasn't swayed by the sham arguments mounted by Wall Street to conceal their dirty deeds...
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Bobo gone walkabout for a few weeks...
By bobo on 7/2/2007 2:19 PM
It's summer, and time for a little traveling and whatnot.
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It Was The Best Of Times.....
By bobo on 6/14/2007 4:20 AM
A Tale Of Two Systems Of Justice.
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An Absolutely Amazing and Definitive Video Special On Market Manipulation, Naked Short Selling, Hedge Funds
By bobo on 6/2/2007 2:31 AM
Max Keiser has created a definitive special that clearly explains what is going on in the US capital markets.
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Rocker and Gradient Lose Appeal in OSTK Case - Now What Will They Try to Further Stall?
By bobo on 5/30/2007 10:40 AM
Predictably, stock manipulation and colluding to defame a company aren't free speech, they are conduct. Maybe now Rocker and Gradient can get the discovery train rolling?
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Real Meaningful Reform, or Throwing Some Low Level Foot-soldiers Under The Bus?
By bobo on 5/18/2007 2:56 PM
Hard to imagine Wall Street creating a minor tempest to conceal the larger storm...
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Joe Nocera Continues His Hilarious Antics For The Amusement Of The Cheap Seats
By bobo on 5/12/2007 5:22 AM
Formerly serious NY Times flack Joe Nocera launches a triumph of absurdity without cracking a smile...
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Patrick Byrne Speaks Out About Hedge Funds and their Evil Ways, Media Collectively Applies Double Standard
By bobo on 5/11/2007 5:35 AM
Great video of Patrick in a forum with a pro-short Yale professor (what else?), and the media makes much hay out of Patrick's subpoena from last year (which he actually discussed openly at the time) while conveniently forgetting it was also the target of the same subpoenas...
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The Big Lie Redux: Options Exchanges speak out against changing SHO...
By bobo on 5/5/2007 6:51 AM
I really don't need to write much this time around.
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My Summer State Of The Union
By bobo on 5/4/2007 1:19 PM
Most of the pieces have fallen into place, and the overall picture is beyond ugly and bleak.
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Reading The Latest Rocker Nuggets, I Literally Blew Coffee Through My Nose
By bobo on 4/30/2007 5:10 PM
Sure it's uncomfortable. Even after you blow it, the pain lingers on. Maybe I should sue Rocker, or McDonald's, whose coffee it was that caused me such pain, and so badly traumatized my mucous membranes....?
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OK Passes Anti-NSS Legislation; Eagletech Story Told Without Bias
By bobo on 4/26/2007 6:04 AM
The good folks of Oklahoma have gotten a landmark anti-NSS bill passed. Read all about it.
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The Ever Forgettable and Oft Ignored 'lilGW Hurls Forth Yet More Tortured Idiocy
By bobo on 4/23/2007 2:57 AM
When you have to pretend that everyone reading is addled, does that make you a dimwit, or your readers....?
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Overstock Releases Amusing and Sad Press Release
By bobo on 4/20/2007 8:25 AM
Amusing in the way that being wryly amused by the human condition can be amusing, sad in the same way.
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Must Read letter to SEC in Reg SHO comment section
By bobo on 4/17/2007 8:09 AM
Rarely do I see a summary that is both comprehensive, as well as beautifully structured. This is one of the times.
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