Actually Barb, people can't be anything on the Web. They can only pretend to be anything. That's why dishonest people get into trouble. They feel anonymous and leave behind any civilized character they might have in 3D. But they are still exactly what they are. They are also perfectly identifiable to law enforcement people. The magnetic, electron and photon traces are everywhere.
When QUALCOMM's SnapTrack is in business, even mobile people will not be able to hide - the position of their phone call will be identifiable.
Writing doesn't rust or get burned in the Web. People can dredge back to 1995 to find stuff I've written and early 1996 in SI.
You think that the aspect of the suggestion that people dehypothecate, which I repeated, which might make this discussion illegal is suggesting a time.
Now, suggesting a time when it couldn't happen [Memorial Day] would seem to suggest that no time was in fact suggested, which immediately forced people into making their own plans. Either the day before, or the day after, or some other day and you will see in this discussion that various people decided to do it a couple of weeks ago, others will decide not to do it at all, etc. It's a very free, open and informed market. Just the stuff the SEC likes.
When Merrill Lynch, George Gilder etc suggest: "Buy, Sell, Dehypothecate, Cut Margin, Increase Margin', or any other recommendation, the timing of the event is NOW! Nobody thinks that means they are conspiring illegally to manipulate prices, though they know very well that their sudden announcement to do it NOW will rapidly and immediately move the price. Heck, George Gilder even has a secret announcement for NOW, which goes to the paying subscribers and they operate on a second by second basis. 10 minutes is too long to score big. Now THAT's timing!! I don't think a month from now, on a public holiday, can really be called "timing".
It seemed to me that some time to create some interest would be needed and some drama to get attention. A boring little announcement that "Gee if people dehypothecate, it might reduce the artificial downward pressure on the share price" would NOT get any attention. The timing was irrelevant because the only thing which matters is that people actually DO dehype. I even pointed out that there would be pre-emptive strikes, so there was no real intention to have an actual Memorial Day action, which in any event couldn't be.
I do blatantly admit that I thought that if people dehyped, that would raise the share price and I needed to make a lot of noise to make people think of it and consider dehyping as part of their ownership of Globalstar LP. I really can't believe persuading people to dehype is illegal and nobody seems to suggest so, including you.
As is already evident, there was NO spike before Memorial Day, so it is obvious that people considered their position well beforehand. Most people understand that stockmarkets are predictive mechanisms, so it should surprise nobody that nothing happened on Memorial Day. So I think the timing issue is a non-event too. I can assure you that I am not so stupid as to think that everyone would dumbly sit doing nothing until the day before they could be dehyped.
You didn't quote any case similar to the GGMDM so I expect there isn't one! I really did look at a lot of them.
Since I personally have nothing to gain other than some fun [which you also admit to which will therefore make you a co-conspirator though it was perhaps only wry amusement on your part], some understanding, [which I and others have gained - they can all spell hypotheticate now] and hopefully a more financially robust Globalstar LP with less surplus stock hanging around depressing the price artificially, which is bad for shareholders [including me], I doubt that this comes into the ambit of fraud or illegal market manipulation etc. People are free to be advised to dehype if they like and I am free to suggest they do it sooner rather than later.
Mqurice |
