Re: 3/25/05 - "Bob O'Brien": A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
Friday, March 25, 2005
A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
Anyone that hasn't seen it should go to tinyurl.com and check out the news piece that features among others Dr. Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com, Dr. James Angel, one of the foremost authorities on the capital markets, and Bob O'Brien - the protagonist in this little unfolding drama.
The piece has been called an infomercial by some. Not so. Commercials are paid advertising. You pay to have them aired. And they sell something, or solicit donations - there's a call to action at the end, usually designed to separate you from your money. This has no call to action other than for our regulators to enforce the rules, and stop the fail to deliver problem - or we can't conscience privatizing social security.
This is a news piece that was created by friends of mine from around the country - New Jersey, Texas, Nevada, California. Is it an "independent news piece?" Huh. Show me one of those. The same 3 or 4 conglomerates own all the outlets. A better question is does it accurately portray the issue? That answer is yes. Professor Angel, Dr. Byrne, Mary Campbell, your's truly - all answered the questions asked truthfully, and it doesn't matter who held the camera - the truth is still the truth, and news is still news.
Now there are those that will howl that this is somehow unfair, and propaganda, and bad. Funny, given that there are financial "news" sites devoted to writing hatchet jobs on some hedge funds' picks. No one is howling that they are propaganda machines. At least no one in the mainstream media. Everything is just fine, until a piece that puts a human face on the illegalities of Wall Street surfaces, and then you can hear the howling coast to coast. God forbid the little guy figures out that he is getting screwed by the system designed to protect him.
It would have been nice to get an SEC representative on, but time constraints and their general reluctance to talk about this issue are such that it wasn't practical.
I figure that a CEO, a professor, an investor and a masked man will have to do this go around. But what do I know?
Send the URL to every elected official you can think of, folks - the Web is far more powerful than TV these days anyway. Let's show them some footage of the people this is impacting - they need to understand this isn't rich white guy A losing a little money to rich white guy B.
This is America. And we are being fleeced. And the Video says "make them stop." Just like the ad did. Make the regulators do their job, make Wall Street obey the rules, and stop the cover up. Now.
How can anyone be against that? How can anyone take the position that asking our regulators to enforce the rules that were written to protect us is bad, or despicable, or some sort of a scam? The only folks I could think of that would want to let illegal behavior continue are those engaging in and profiting from that behavior. Then again, perhaps I've got it all wrong.
If you go to the NFI message boards you will find that since I posted the link to this video there, we have seen an unprecedented number of posts designed to clog the boards and bury the information. Why would someone throw so much effort into clogging the message boards on a day when the stock isn't even trading? I even noted 2 or 3 obvious computer generated messages saying that the stock is about to plunge in the next half hour - on a day the market is closed. I couldn't make this stuff up. And yet where are the SEC agents looking at these people attempting to systematically manipulate the share price? Isn't it illegal to spend time and money disseminating false and misleading information, essentially to stage a disinformation campaign, to tarnish a company's reputation and stymie the ability of their shareholders to communicate?
I don't understand those that are critical of demanding that the SEC enforce the rules and that the DTCC be forced to disclose the size of the fail problem, so that illegal market manipulators can't get away with their nefarious business any longer - but I'm sure there are those that will find a way.
And by their deeds shall you know them...
# posted by bob obrien @ 1:44 PM 0 comments
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