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To: X Y Zebra who wrote (60313)	6/3/1999 8:05:00 PM
From: IceShark	Respond to of 164684

He, he he.

To: X Y Zebra who wrote (60313)	6/3/1999 8:51:00 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Respond to of 164684

Will this be off topic ? Only time will tell.... but it is worth the read, just to see that if Mr. Bezos fails in his huge bet.... there is already a name for.... well... the disease... (really an excuse), but for this hypochondriac society we live in, where no one is guilty of noth'n... there is always a disease to blame it on.... ..... <clip> .... And how would Rivlin generate the profits? In some published accounts, he would be using his access to trading programs (monitored by the Treasury Department), whose very existence was said to be a huge secret. When I spoke to him recently, he downplayed the Treasury's role and claimed that the profits were essentially made by obtaining commitments from major European banks that—for reasons never quite developed in 90 minutes of bafflegab—made it possible for the commitment-holders to rapidly double or quadruple their money. Rivlin added that U.S. intelligence operatives, including at least one of his own clients, were huge beneficiaries of such programs. "They don't need Ollie North any more," was his immortal punch line. <clip>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- It is certainly fair enough to hoot at chumps who fall for tales of supersafe investments yielding astronomical returns, who never heard that risk and return are positively correlated, who somehow haven't noticed that the Treasury has no problem at all selling highly sophisticated investors bills yielding 5% or so. And you are doubly hootworthy when you buy "prime bank instruments" said to yield 83% a week from Teddy Solomon, a serial fraudster who was allegedly selling this story line even as he was in a halfway house as part of a sentence for a previous conviction. You are merely pathetic when you fall for the bucket-shop salesmen from A.R. Baron or for any of the Adelaide Street boys. <clip> .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Here it will be fruitful to begin with the DSM-IV—the fourth and latest edition of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association—and focus on the passage headed "Antisocial Personality Disorder." Its essential feature, one learns, is "a pervasive pattern of disregard for... the rights of others that begins in childhood and continues into adulthood." The central features of this syndrome: "deceit and manipulation." Also noted prominently is "a pattern of impulsivity... manifested by a failure to plan ahead... without consideration for the consequences to self or others." DSM-IV tells us that antisocial personality disorder has some genetic basis and is "more common among the first-degree biological relatives of those with the disorder than among the general population." Among Americans as a whole, about 3% of males and 1% of females manifest the symptoms. <clip> <clip> The Ecuadoreans fared less well, it seems. By Rivlin's account, their investment was unfortunately looted by a crook in Athens. The late news is that a U.S. district court judge in Washington D.C. has ordered Rivlin to pay the Ecuadorean foundation $16 million, and, just in case, has ordered his passport seized. <clip>.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- ...... forbes.com And yes, credit where credit belongs... Message 9940391

To: X Y Zebra who wrote (60313)	6/3/1999 9:02:00 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Respond to of 164684

And for dessert.... A.R. Baron. The brokerage took in $75 million from 8,000-odd small investors in the 1990s. The prosecution of the principals is winding down. Last year the firm's chief financial officer was sentenced to 5-to-15 years. The Adelaide Street boys. A marvelously zany swindle, in which characters operating in Toronto and Florida would get on the phone and sell allegedly precious metals like germanium for as much as $85 an ounce. Most of the metal sold was industrial stuff worth maybe $7 an ounce. The federal indictment says the investors lost $10 million. Two of the ringleaders are awaiting sentencing, the feds are trying to extradite the third from Spain. forbes.com