NASAA just issued forth a remarkable Amicus brief in the Whistler case, lambasting the DTCC's position that it should essentially be answerable to nobody for its role in an alleged fraud against investors.
NASAA argues that the DTCC, a private monopoly, shouldn't be above the law, or recourse in state court, because of the laughable, "Too big to fail" arguments it has advanced.
Read the Amicus brief here.
And consider the hubris required to try that argument in the first place.
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Jim Cramer was featured in the NY Post, in an article pretending shock and amazement over his statements in DECEMBER on stockwire.
Those same statements along with the footage that contained them were up at a number of different websites over the last few months, as well as on Youtube. Which apparently, the entire NY financial press corps missed for that period. But suddenly it is news. What will they tell us next - we invaded Iraq?
I reviewed his statements again from that show, and could find nothing surprising - he indicated that he knew how to break the law, to manipulate stocks, and that he did it when he was a hedge fund manager, pretty much whenever he felt like it, that he knew it was illegal, and that he didn't care, and that it was a fun game, and that he felt that other hedge funds should and often do exactly the same thing - lie, steal "moron longs'" money, manipulate using false info and fraudulent devices, etc. And that the SEC wasn't going to stop it, as it couldn't find its own bottom if it had a handle on it.
What kills me is all the folks pretending that this is news of some sort.
Jim comes out and tells you what I've been telling you for years now - the market is rigged, powerful hedge funds do whatever they like without any fear of punishment, the law is broken habitually, if you don't do it you are a moron and a rube, and there is nothing to worry about from any regulator, as they are either incompetent, or crooked - that from the recent Senate report issued by Grassley and Specter, not Cramer - and it is a big deal? Please. Man bites dog this isn't.
What kills me is that some third-tier pubs are acting like this is all just sooooo surprising. I mean, nobody wants to put any money into the US market anymore (can you believe that they are still trying to color that as due to Sarbanes-Oxley, or over-regulation, or some other windmill?) because it is so badly rigged and gamed, and it is getting worse, not better, and groups like NASAA are holding conferences to discuss what a snakepit of larceny the markets are......
And we needed Jim to tell us this?
How about when he wiped his A with the SEC subpoena? Did that afford any clues as to his fear of the regulators or their massive clout on the Street? Or how about when Cox couldn't quash those same subpoenas fast enough, literally was on the line in his PJs to shut them down....were you getting any hints at that point? How about when companies like OSTK are on the SHO list forever? Or when NFI preferred stock is on SHO, and there are no options for it, thus the "it's all the options market makers" pablum is conspicuously impossible to fall back upon? Or how about when the SEC grandfathers in all naked shorted shares prior to a company appearing on the SHO list, even though ALL rules are required to go out to public comment before they can be enacted, and grandfathering never was? Is that bad, when even the regulator does whatever it feels like, with no fear of reprisal or accountability?
And we are supposed to believe those they are policing, who hire them when they want 7-figure "attaboys" for a job well done, are terrified of them and thus behaving themselves?
We don't really need Jim to tell us that the entire system is dangerously out of control when our lawmakers and regulators ignore the rules and laws, and treat those they are chartered with protecting as annoyances. Annette Nazareth saying that those who complain about massive naked short selling and Reg SHO are crybabies upset over their stocks failing to go up, typifies the attitude of the SEC...and instead of being fired and publicly castigated, she was given a commissioner's seat. What does that tell you?
Aguire was fired for wanting to investigate Pequot and Mack, after 18 referrals and complaints from SROs over trading that could have only been insider, because Aguire had the temerity to want to do his job versus allowing the Wall Street scumbag clique rip off the American investor, with impunity. Nazareth spits on investors, the SEC delays any meaningful action for years while pretending to do some busy work (as it ignores the rhino in the room), and guys like Elgindy go to jail for 12 years for fraud, collusion, racketeering, etc. - but only after all evidence of their having know about 9/11 before it happened is struck from the record and banned from the courtroom (true story - he told his broker to sell all his stocks on 9/10, and said the Dow would fall by 3000 points tomorrow, and to wire all the proceeds to his middle eastern account). How F-d up does this have to obviously be that this kind of obfuscation goes on, and Joe Public is being told to relinquish his rights to protect himself from the bad guys?
Folks, the bad guys were busy naked short selling, before, during and after 9/11. WE KNOW THAT from the Elgindy thing. They do it every day - they lie, destroy honest companies and people for profit and fun, break the law like it's double parking, and nobody does anything about it.
And with all this going on, we need Jim to alert us that rich and powerful hedge funds can routinely manipulate the markets, using money, illegal trading, planting and broadcasting of lies, etc?
He's getting a bad rap. All he did was say what is completely and patently obvious to anyone familiar with the way the markets really work - it is all a lie, and you have no chance, as the bad guys run the show, and do whatever they like, and whatever it takes, to get your money. He described some of the ways they do it, and admitted that it was common.
Even as the NY press issues forth more articles about how no hedge fund regulation is needed, and how the market is a perfect entity that polices itself.
I pointed out several years ago that Wall Street was saying that back in 1932 and 1933, as the SEC was being formed - that the regulator was unnecessary, amd that the market was a perfect machine.
True.
A perfect fleecing machine, with a thin veneer of polish and civility carefully propagated by that machine's PR flacks.
Bloomberg tore the lid off the naked short selling crisis last week - did any of the big NY pubs write long exposes indicating that Patch and Bud and Faulk and Patrick and I have been right, for years now, and that the entire NY media machine was dedicated to propagating a lie? Not a chance. The less said about the Bloomberg piece, from Wall Street's perspective, the better. Nobody wants to draw any more attention to that than it has already received. Shhhhh. Ignore it, and it never happened.
So Jim says it's a cheap con, and that he has been behind the curtain pulling the levers before?
Wow. What's next? Politicians aren't honest? Attorneys lie? As do judges, regulators, cops, priests, CEOs, etc. etc. etc.?
Say it isn't so.
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I suggested in my last blog that anyone interested in making a change send a letter to the addressees, and make their voices heard. I want to remind you all again to get off your butts and do something.
Either take action, or be lunch.
Not much in between.
And if you aren't doing something, you really are just food.