Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Litigation Release No. 18646 / March 29, 2004
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Wolfson, et al., 2:02 CV-1086 TC (D. Utah)
SEC Settles Market Manipulation Charges Against BonnieJean C. Tippetts
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") announced today that on March 26, 2004, the Honorable Tena Campbell, United States District Judge for the District of Utah, Central Division, entered a Final Judgment as to Defendant BonnieJean C. Tippetts of Farmington, Utah.
The Commission's Complaint alleged that Tippetts was executive assistant and office manager to Allen Wolfson, the defendant who coordinated the stock manipulation of Freedom Surf, Inc. ("Freedom Surf") between July and November 2000. Freedom Surf was then a start-up company with offices in Huntington Beach, California. The Complaint alleged that Tippetts acted as Wolfson's nominee for opening and controlling three brokerage accounts involved in the manipulation. Although Tippetts was listed as President or Trustee of the respective accounts, Wolfson directed manipulative trades of Freedom Surf stock out of the accounts. In this way, Tippetts aided and abetted Wolfson's securities fraud violations. The Complaint also alleged that Tippetts was involved in making unregistered sales of Freedom Surf stock out of the accounts on which she was listed.
The Judgment against Tippetts enjoins her from future violations of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The Judgment also bars Tippetts from participating in any offering of penny stock. The Court does not impose a civil penalty in the Judgment against Tippetts, based on her statement of financial condition and supporting documentation submitted to the Commission.
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr18646.htm
See also: Litigation Release No. 17756 (September 30, 2002):
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr17756.htm
Yet another pathetic wrist-slap by the SEC. --DD
The Court FINDS that defendant Penny King Holdings violated Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder.
SEC v. Gabor S. Acs and Penny King Holdings, Inc.
CV-N-03-463-ECR-VPC
DEFAULT
It appearing from the records in the above-entitled action that Summons issued on the Complaint, which was filed on August 21, 2003 had been regularly served upon each of the Defendants herinafter named; and it appearing from the affidavit of counsel for Plaintiff and the records herein that each of said Defendants has failed to plead or otherwise defend in said action as required by said Summons and provided by the Federal Rules of Civli Procedure and pursuant to the Minute Order of the Court dated March 15, 2004 (#57),
Now, therefore, on request of counsel for Plaintiff, the DEFAULT, as aforesaid, of the following Defendant, PENNY KING HOLDINGS INC. in the above entitled action is hereby entered.
Dated: March 17, 2004
That stuff is editorialized anyway. I prefer direct source material myself. Here is a link to a series of posts which contain the deposition of Hugh Beck (SEC enforcement attorney) in the SEC v. USXP case:
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=STAC&read=53413
DJ is a pay-to-play service, and I suppose they're asking Matt to pull unauthorized reposts of their articles. The first is of course about USXP, and the other is about the new NASD proposal. I like the new proposal because it looks as if it may be eliminating the short-against-fully-hedged-position loophole that's so popular with the lenders-of-last-resort.
Scumsville? I hope this is just a window on scumsville. LOL!
Speaking of...well, you know, did you notice that ICI's NAANSS website, nakedshortselling.com is gone...domain and all? I guess that as the get-shorty campaign winds down the promoters will move on to the next attempt to bulldoze a clear path for dirty biz. Any guess as to what it might be? LOL!
(Hint: It's been dubbed 'Get-SOX' already.)
OTHER FALSE OR MISLEADING STATEMENTS
A. Naked Short Selling Statements
74) In September 2003, Altomare began publicly suggesting that so-called "naked short selling" of Universal shares had artificially depressed Universal's stock price. In early October, Altomare stated in an interview that without the downward pressure of "naked shorting" Universal's share price would be much higher. In fact, as of September 30, 2003, the total "fails to deliver" of Universal's shares outstanding was de minimis.
75) In addition, none of Altomare's public statements regarding naked short selling disclosed Universal's issuance of hundreds of millions Universal shares to the re-sellers who had dumped these shares into the market.
76) In a subsequent interview with Dow Jones Newswire, Altomare falsely stated that Universal provided the Commission enforcement staff with 11,000 to 12,000 pages of documents in response to a staff subpoena requesting documents relating to short selling of Universal shares. In fact, Universal's total production in response to the SEC subpoena was only 295 pages, none of which provided evidence that investors or brokers were intentionally failing to deliver Universal shares in connection with "naked short selling."
Penny trash companies have been using the spectre of 'naked short selling' for the purpose of promotion and to cover their own actions or failures; and apparently the SEC is taking notice. The above excerpt is from the SEC v. USXP complaint:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18636.htm
It IS amazing indeed how the get-shorty cultists have glommed on to the April 1 effective date for the new 3370 rules as some kind of deadline where all short positions must be covered. I suspect that some of the boilerroom operators will seize the opportunity to run a variety of penny trash stocks under the guise of a short squeeze cheered on by the touts and louts on RB.
For sale: Former United States Air Force facility located in Central Washington State
10 minutes off I-90
Underground Buildings:
Power Dome - 125' diameter, 75' ceiling
Control Dome - 100' diameter, 50' ceiling
3 - 155' deep Missile Silos
3 - Equipment Terminal Builings - 4 Stories
3 - Misc. Buildings adjacent to Silos
Ex-Air Intake Building (Empty Useable Space)
Ex-Air Exhaust Building (Empty Useable Space)
2 - Antenna Silos - 6 stories deep
1 - Entry Portal Building- 6 stories deep
Underground tunnel level 5 stories below ground level.
Underground has a constant unheated temperature of 55 degrees.
Wall thicknesses 2 feet to 14 feet.
Built to withstand a 1 MEGATON blast within 3,000 feet and survive!
Private water system with 700' well.
3 Phase High-Voltage Power on site.
Paved Roads.
Original perimeter barbed-wire topped chainlink fence intact.
Original 40' by 100' metal shop above ground.
2 manufactured homes on property.
Ground water level approx. 600 feet below surface.
THIS FACILITY HAS NO GROUNDWATER SEEPAGE.
360 degree view. Few Neighbors. Private, secluded location.
Possible Uses: Ultra Secure, Ultra Private, Personal/Corporate Retreat
World Class Winery - Plant Vineyard above, Store Vintage below
Backup Data, or other long term storage
Year Round Youth Camp or Boarding School
1 silo could be a 155' Rock Climbing Wall
1 silo could be a 100' deep SCUBA Training Pool
APPOINTMENT REQUIRED FOR SHOWINGS
DO NOT TRESSPASS OR DISTURB EXISTING TENANTS
$3,950,000 Minimum Sales Price
PREFER LEASE OR JOINT VENTURE
I am especially interested in Joint Venturing for developing:
Summer/Year Round Camp/Adventure Facility
World-Class Winery, Cellars and Vineyards
Bed and Breakfast/Resort
Data Storage/Backup Facility
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2375751781
[nb: Posted as interesting. Not my listing. LOL! --DD]
Plug and Play...
Pretty soon, you'll be able to get broadband Internet over your power lines. Maybe you already can.
By David S. Bennahum
Posted Monday, March 15, 2004, at 10:18 AM PT
Roughly 50 million homes in the United States connect to the Internet through broadband, typically cable or DSL (but to a limited degree satellite as well). Although that sounds like a lot, it's still a far cry from the nearly 70 million homes with dial-up connections. But this month, a new service is being rolled out that, over time, could dramatically change the economics of broadband Internet and transform what is largely a duopoly between cable and DSL into a competitive market.
The new option: connecting to the Internet through electrical sockets. In this scenario, the home user plugs a specialized modem into the wall socket and is immediately brought online at speeds up to 3 megabits per second, as fast as any broadband service on the market today. Known as "broadband over power lines," or BPL, the service is currently available to 16,000 homes in Cincinnati.
Marketed under the brand Current Communications, the Cincinnati offering came as something of a surprise. For years, the idea of delivering Internet access through power lines has been stymied by engineering problems that until recently seemed intractable. As far back as March 2000, CNET reported that companies were close to delivering high-speed Internet access through power lines, but nothing came of it. It's taken four years to turn the theory into commercial reality. Current Communications won't reveal the specifics of what made its technology perform as promised, but in general terms, what's historically hindered the deployment of BPL is that the electrical system was designed to transmit electricity and nothing else.
Continue Article
Two major obstacles make transmitting Internet signals through power lines a difficult proposition. The first is that power lines are designed not to interfere with other electromagnetic signals, such as radio and television. Metal wires made of aluminum and copper (the stuff that carries electricity) are also natural antennas. So, utility companies, in order to comply with FCC regulations over what gets broadcast where and how, learned to shield their systems from producing interference with these other licensed signals. A properly built electrical grid transmits electricity at a frequency of 60 hertz. In principle, those same wires could carry another signal, using a different frequency. The problem is that could jam up things like TV and radio transmissions.
Current Communications figured out a way to transmit Internet signals along another frequency?it won't disclose which, other than to say it's somewhere between 1.7 megahertz and 30 megahertz?and to comply with FCC regulations that the signal not interfere with other transmissions. And last month, the FCC ruled that BPL systems could go forward, clearing a major regulatory hurdle. The road's not entirely clear for the technology, however. The FCC has acknowledged that BPL transmission may interfere with amateur ham-radio broadcasts, and that problem will likely need to be solved before BPL can become as common as cable and DSL connections.
The other major technical challenge for BPL systems is that utilities "step down" electrical power from 10,000 volts to 120 volts before electricity enters the home. This is done through a transformer (visible on telephone poles as a kind of big metal bucket). By figuring out a way for Internet signals to bypass the transformer, Current Communications can bring BPL into the home without the risk of bringing along deadly 10,000-volt electricity with it.
Current Communications and Cinergy, the Cincinnati utility that's providing the electrical grid for the service, tested the system for a year in 100 of the city's households. In addition to the 16,000 homes currently eligible for the service, they plan to offer it to 55,000 homes by the end of the year. Cinergy says it intends to bring BPL, in a second venture, to the 24 million American homes in rural communities that either have no broadband option or just one (typically DSL).
Current Communications, meanwhile, intends to mimic what it's done with Cinergy throughout the rest of the (non-rural) country: partner with utilities to bring BPL to as many American homes as possible. It won't be the only one trying. A company called Amperion has rolled out a BPL service in Ontario and is in trials with EarthLink and Progress Energy to test a similar system in North Carolina. Last October, the city of Manassas, Va., signed an agreement with Powerline Communications to offer every household BPL access by the end of this year. Another entrant into this field is Ambient, which is undergoing field trials in Alabama in conjunction with a subsidiary of the utility Southern Co.
For the moment, though, more households can buy BPL from Current Communications than from any other company. Current offers three price ranges based on speed: One megabit per second costs $29.95 per month, 2 megabits per second costs $34.95, and 3 megabits per second costs $39.95. This is about the same speed and price as DSL and cable, but there's one important difference. Current Communications delivers a "symmetrical" service, where your upload speed is as fast as your download speed. Cable and DSL are "asynchronous." Your download speed may be fast, but your upload speed is only a fraction of that?typically 80 percent or 90 percent slower. (Satellite upload speeds are even worse.) The ability to deliver synchronous speeds is unique to BPL, and more and more Internet users require a fast upload speed to get the most out of the Net. File-sharers upload files all the time, but there are other examples. Internet telephony requires some amount of uploading anytime you're on the phone, and video instant-messenger applications upload data, too.
Understandably, utilities will be closely watching the way Cinergy works with Current Communications. If BPL is a hit with Cincinnati consumers, and it causes no problems when it comes to maintenance of the electrical grid, then it's hard to imagine why any utility would refuse to offer a similar service. BPL may even provide utilities with a benefit beyond additional revenue: The same system that transmits Internet data can be used to remotely monitor household electricity usage, obviating the need to send a technician out to inspect the household meter. The system can also provide detailed feedback on electricity usage in real time, which could potentially detect brownouts before they escalate into blackouts.
If BPL takes off, cable and DSL (along with satellite) will face even more pressure to lower prices while simultaneously increasing speed. That's the dynamic that made much of the rest of our technological world?from DVD players to personal computers?as cheap and ubiquitous as electricity.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097131/
If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?
The question is neither capricious nor itseIf insane. However much we may be personally convinced that we can tell the normal from the abnormal, the evidence is simply not compelling. It is commonplace, for example, to read about murder trials wherein eminent psychiatrists for the defense are contradicted by equally eminent psychiatrists
for the prosecution on the matter of the defendant's sanity. More generally, there are a great deal of conflicting data on the reliability, utility, and meaning of such terms as "sanity," "insanity," "mental illness." and "schizophrenia" (1). From as early as 1934, Benedict suggested that normality and abnormality are not universal (2). What is viewed as normaI in one culture may be seen as quite aberrant in another. Thus, notions of normality and abnormality may not be quite as accurate as people believe they are.
To raise questions regarding normality and abnormality is in no way to question the fact that some behaviors are deviant or odd. Murder is deviant. So, too, are hallucinations. Nor does raising such questions deny the existence of the personal anguish that is often associated with 'mental illness." Anxiety and depression exist. Psychological suffering exists. But normality and abnormality, sanity and insanity, and the diagnoses that flow from them may be less substantive than many believe them to be.
At its heart, the question of whether the sane can be distinguished from the insane (and whether degrees of insanity can be distinguished from each other) is a simple matter: do the salient characteristics that lead to diagnoses reside in the patients themselves or in the environments and contexts in which observers find them? . . . [T]he belief has been strong that patients present symptoms, that those symptoms can be categorized, and, implicitly, that the sane are distinguishable from the insane. More recently, however, this belief has been questioned. . . . [T]he view has grown that psychological categorization of mental illness is useless at best and downright harmful, misleading, and pejorative at worst. Psychiatric diagnoses, in this view, are in the minds of the observers and are not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed (3-5).
Gains can be made in deciding which of these is more nearly accurate by getting normal people (that is, people who do not have, and have never suffered, symptoms of serious psychiatric disorders) admitted to psychiatric hospitals and then determining whether they were discovered to be sane and, if so, how. If the sanity of such pseudopatients were always detected, there would be prima facie evidence that a sane individual can be distinguished from the insane context in which he is found. . . , If, on the other hand, the sanity of the pseudopatients were never discovered, serious difficulties would arise for those who support traditional modes of psychiatric diagnosis. Given that the hospital staff was not incompetent, that the pseudopatient had been behaving as sanely as he had been outside of the hospital, and that it had never been previously suggested that he belonged in a psychiatric hospital, such an unlikely outcome would support the view that psychiatric diagnosis betrays little about the patient but much about the environment in which an observer finds him.
This article describes such an experiment. Eight sane people gained secret admission to 12 different hospitals (6). Their diagnostic experiences constitute the data of the first part of this article; the remainder is devoted to a description of their experiences in psychiatric institutions.
PSEUDOPATIENTS AND THEIR SETTINGS
The eight pseudopatients were a varied group. One was a psychology graduate student in his 20's. The remaining seven were older and "established." Among them were three psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter, and a housewife. Three pseudopatients were women, five were men. All of them employed pseudonyms, lest their alleged diagnoses embarrass them later. Those who were in mental health professions alleged another occupation in order to avoid the special attentions that might be accorded by staff, as a matter of courtesy or caution, to ailing colleagues (7). With the exception of myself (I was the first pseudopatient and my presence was known to the hospital administrator and chief psychologist and, so far as I can tell, them alone), the presence of pseudopatients and the nature of the research program was not known to to hospital staffs (8).
The settings were similarly varied. In order to generalize the findings, admission into a variety of hospitals was sought. The 12 hospitals in the sample were located in five different states on the East and West coasts. Some were old and shabby, some were quite new. Some were research-oriented, others not. Some had good staff-patient ratios, others were quite understaffed. Only one was a strictly private hospital. All of the others were supported by state or federal funds or, in one instance, by university funds.
After calling the hospital for an appointment, the pseudopatient arrived at the admissions office complaining that he had been hearing voices. Asked what the voices said, he replied that they were often unclear, but as far as he could tell they said "empty," "hollow," and "thud." The voices were unfamiliar and were of the same sex as the pseudopatient.
Beyond alleging the symptoms and falsifying name, vocation, and employment, no further alterations of persons' history, or circumstances, were made. The significant events of the pseudopatient's life history were presented as they had actually occurred. Relationhips with parents and siblings, with spouse and children, with people at work and in school, consistent with the aforementioned exceptions, were described as they were or had been. Frustrations and upsets were described along with joys and satisfactions. These facts are important to remember. If anything, they strongly biased the subsequent results in favor of detecting sanity, since none of their histories or current behaviors were seriously pathological in any way.
Immediately upon admission to the psychiatric ward, the pseudopatient ceased simulating any symptoms of abnormality. in some cases, there was a brief period of mild nervousness and anxiety, since none of the pseudopatients really believed that they would be admitted so easily. Indeed, their shared fear was that they would be immediately exposed as frauds and greatly embarrassed. Moreover, many of them had sever visited a psychiatric ward; even those who had, nevertheless had some genuine fears about what might happen to them. Their nervousness, then, was quite appropriate to the novelty of the hospital setting, and it abated rapidly.
Apart from that short-lived nervousness, the pseudopatient behaved on the ward as he "normally" behaved. The pseudopatient spoke to patients and staff as he might ordinarily. Because there is uncommonly little to do on a psychiatric ward, he attempted to engage others in conversation. When asked by staff how he was feeling, he indicated that be was fine, that he no longer experienced symptoms. He responded to instructions from attendants, to calls for medication (which was not swallowed), and to dining-hall instructions. Beyond such activities as were available to him on the admissions ward, he spent his time writing down his observations about the ward, its patients, and the staff. Initially these notes were written "secretly," but as it soon became clear that no one much cared, they were subsequently written on standard tablets of paper in such public places as the dayroom. No secret was made of these activities.
The pseudopatient, very much as a true psychiatric patient, entered a hospital with no foreknowledge of when he would be discharged. Each was told that he would have to get out by his own devices, essentially by convincing the staff that be was sane. The psychological stresses associated with hospitalization were considerable, and all but one of the pseudopatients desired to be discharged almost immediately after being admitted. They were, therefore, motivated not only to behave sanely, but to be paragons of cooperation. That their behavior was in no way disruptive is confirmed by nursing reports which have been obtained on most of the patients. These reports uniformly indicate that the patients were "friendly" "cooperative," and "exhibited no abnormal indications."
THE NORMAL ARE NOT DETECTABLY SANE
In spite their public "show" of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected. Admitted, except in one case, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (9), each was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia "in remission." The in remission" should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatient's simulation. Nor are there any indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatient's status was suspect. Rather, the evidence is strong that, once labeled schizophrenic. the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. If the pseudopatient was to be discharged, he must naturally be "in remission" but be was not sane, nor, in the institution's view, had he ever been sane.
The uniform failure to recognize sanity cannot be attributed to the quality of the hospitals. . . . Nor can it be alleged that there was simply not enough time to observe the pseudopatients. Length of hospitalization ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days. The pseudopatients were not, in fact, carefully observed, but this failure clearly speaks more to traditions within psychiatric hospitals than to lack of opportunity.
Finally, it cannot be said that the failure to recognize the pseudopatients' sanity was due to the fact that they were not behaving sanely. While there was clearly some tension present in all of them, their daily visitors could detect no serious behavioral consequences--nor, indeed, could other patients. It was quite common for the patients to "detect" the pseudopatients' sanity. "You're not crazy. You're a journalist, or a professor [referring to the continual note-taking]. You're checking up on the hospital."
While most of the patients were reassured by the pseudopatient's insistence that he had been sick before he came in but was fine now, some continued to believe that the pseudopatient was sane throughout his hospitalization (10). The fact that the patients often recognized normality when staff did not raises important questions.
Failure to detect sanity during the course of hospitalization may be due to the fact that . . . physicians are more inclined to call a healthy person sick than a sick person healthy.
The reasons for this are not hard to find: it is clearly more dangerous to misdiagnose illness than health. Better to err on the side of caution--to suspect illness even among the healthy.
But what holds for medicine does not hold equally well for psychiatry. Medical illnesses, while unfortunate, are not commonly pejorative. Psychiatric diagnoses, on the contrary, carry with them personal, legal, and social stigmas (11). It was therefore important to see whether the tendency toward diagnosing the sane insane could be reversed. The following experiment was arranged at a research and teaching hospital whose staff had heard these findings but doubted that such an error could occur in their hospital. The staff was informed that at some time during the following 3 months, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to be admitted into the psychiatric hospital. Each staff member was asked to rate each patient who presented himself at admissions or on the ward according to the likelihood that the patient was a pseudopatient.
Judgments were obtained on 193 patients who were admitted for psychiatric treatment. All staff who had had sustained contact with or primary responsibility for the patient--attendants, nurses, psychiatrists, physicians, and psychologists--were asked to make judgments. Forty-nine patients were alleged, with high confidence, to be pseudopatients by at least one member of the staff. Twenty-three were considered suspect by at least one psychiatrist. Nineteen were suspected by one psychiatrist and one other staff member. Actually, no genuine pseudopatient (at least from my group) presented himself during this period.
The experiment is instructive. It indicates that the tendency to designate sane people as insane can be reversed when the stakes (in this case, prestige and diagnostic acumen) are high. But what can he said of the 19 people who were suspected of being "sane" by one psychiatrist and another staff member? Were these people truly "sane?" There is no way of knowing. But one thing is certain: any diagnostic process that lends itself so readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one.
THE STICKINESS OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC LABELS
Beyond the tendency to call the healthy sick--a tendency that accounts better for diagnostic behavior on admission than it does for such behavior after a lengthy period of exposure--the data speak to the massive role of labeling in psychiatric assessment. Having once been labeled schizophrenic, there is nothing the pseudopatient can do to overcome the tag. The tag profoundly colors others' perceptions of him and his behavior.
From one viewpoint, these data are hardly surprising, for it has long been known that elements are given meaning by the context in which they occur. Once a person is designated abnormal,all of his other behaviors and characteristics are colored by that label. Indeed, that label is so powerful that many of the pseudopatients' normal behaviors were overlooked entirely or profoundly misinterpreted. Some examples may clarify this issue.
Earlier I indicated that there were no changes in the pseudopatient's personal history and current status beyond those of name, employment, and, where necessary, vocation. Otherwise, a veridical description of personal history and circumstances was offered. Those circumstances were not psychotic. How were they made consonant with the diagnosis of psychosis? Or were those diagisoses modified in such a way as to bring them into accord with the circumstances of the pseudopatient's life, as described by him?
As far as I can determine, diagnoses were in no way affected by the relative health of the circumstances of a pseudopatient's life. Rather, the reverse occurred: the perception of his circumstances was shaped entirely by the diagnosis. A clear example of such translation is found in the case of a pseudopatient who had had a close relationship with his mother but was rather remote from his father during his early childhood. During adolescence and beyond, however, his father became a close friend, while his relationship with his mother cooled. His present relationship with his wife was characteristically close and warm. Apart from occasional angry exchanges, friction was minimal. The children had rarely been spanked. Surely there is nothing especially pathological about such a history. . . . Observe, however, how such a history was translated in the psychopathological context, this from the case summary prepared after the patient was discharged.
This white 39-year-old male . . . manifests a long history of considerable ambivalence in close relationships, which began in early childhood. A warm relationship with his mother cools during his adoleseence. A distant relationship to his father is described as becoming very intense. Affective stability is absent. His attempts to control emotionality with his wife and children are punctuated by angry outbursts and, in the case of the children, spankings. And while he says that he has several good friends, one senses considerable ambivalence embedded in those relationships also.
The facts of the case were unintentionally distorted by the staff to achieve consistency, with a popular theory of the dynamics of a schizophrenic reaction (12). Nothing of an ambivalent nature had been described in relations with parents, spouse, or friends. . . . Clearly. the meaning ascribed to his verbalizations (that is, ambivalence. affective instability) was determined by the diagnosis: schizophrenia. An entirely different meaning would have been ascribed if it were known that the man was "normal."
All pseudopatients took extensive notes publicly. Under ordinary circumstances, such behavior would have caused questions in the minds of observers--as, in fact, it did among patients. Indeed, it seemed so certain that the notes would elicit suspicion that elaborate precautions were taken to remove them from the ward each day. But the precautions proved needless. The closest any staff member came to questioning these notes occurred when one pseudopatient asked his physician what kind of medication he was receiving and began to write down the response. "You needn't write it," he was told gently. "If you have trouble remembering, just ask me again."
If no questions were asked of the pseudopatients, how was their writing interpreted? Nursing records for three pseudopatients indicate that the writing was seen as an aspect of their pathological behavior. . . . Given that the patient is in the hospital, he must be psychologically disturbed. And given that he is disturbed, continuous writing msut be a behavioral manifestation of that disturbance, perhaps a subset of the compulsive behaviors that are sometimes correlated with schizophrenia.
One tacit characteristic of psychiatric diagnosis is that it locates the sources of aberration within the individual and only rarely within the complex of stimuli that surrounds him. Consequently, behaviors that are stimulated by the environment are commonly misattributed to the patient's disorder. For example, one kindly nurse found a pseudopatient pacing the long hospital corridors. "Nervous, Mr. X?" she asked. "No, bored," he said.
The notes kept by pseudopatients are full of patient behaviors that were misinterpreted by well-intentioned staff. Often enough, a patient would go "berserk" because he had, wittingly or unwittingly, been mistreated by, say, an attendant. A nurse coming upon the scene would rarely inquire even cursorily into the environmental stimuli of the patient's behavior. Rather, she assumed that his upset derived from his pathology, not from his present interactions with other staff members. . . . (Never were the staff found to assume that one of themselves or the structure of the hospital had anything to do with a patient's behavior. One psychiatrist pointed to a group of patients who were sitting outside the cafeteria entrance half an hour before lunchtime. To a group of young residents he indicated that such behavior was characteristic of the oral-acquisitive nature of the syndrome. It seemed not to occur to him that there were very few things to anticipate in a psychiatric hospital besides eating.
A psychiatric label has a life and an influence of its own. Once the impression has been formed that the patient is schizophrenic, the expectation is that he will continue to be schizophrenic. When a sufficient amount of time has passed, during which the patient has done nothing bizarre, he is considered to be in remission and available for discharge. But the label endured beyond discharge, with the unconfirmed expectation that he will behave as a schizophrenic again. Such labels, conferred by mental health professionals, are as influential on the patient as they are on his relatives and friends, and it should not surprise anyone that the diagnosis acts on all of them as a self-fulfiiling prophecy. Eventually, the patient himself accepts the diagnosis, with all of its surplus meanings and expectations, and behaves accordingly (5).
POWERLESSNESS AND DEPERSONALIZATION
Eye contact and verbal contact reflect concern and individuation; their absence, avoidance and depersonalization. The data I have presented do not do justice to the rich daily encounters that grew up around matters of depersonalization and avoidance. I have records of patients who were beaten by staff for the sin of having initiated verbal contact. During my own experience, for example, one patient was beaten in the presence of other patients for having approached an attendant and told him, "I like you." Occasionally, punishment meted out to patients for misdemeanors seemed so excessive that it could not be justified by the most radical interpretations of psychiatric canon. Nevertheless, they appeared to go unquestioned. Tempers were often short. A patient who had not heard a call for medication would be roundly excoriated, and the morning attendants would often wake patients with, "Come on, you m---f---s, out of bed!"
Neither anecdotal nor "hard" data can convey the overwhelming sense of powerlessness which invades the individual as he is continually exposed to the depersonalization of the psychiatric hospital. . .
Powerlessness was evident everywhere. The patient is deprived of many of his legal rights by deign of his psychiatric commitment (13). He is shorn of credibiilty by virtue of his psychiatric label. His freedom of movement is restricted. He cannot initiate contact with the staff but may only respond to any overtures as they make. Indeed, privacy is mininal. Patients' quarters and possessions can be entered and examined by any staff member, for whatever reason. His personal history and anguish is available to any staff member (often includinging the "grey lady" and "candy striper" volunteer) who chooses to real his folder, regardless of theIr therapeutic relationship to him. His personal hygiene and waste evacuation are often monitored. The toilet may have no door.
At times, depersonalization reaches such proportions that pseudopatients had the sense that they were invisible, or at least unworthy of account. Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semipublic room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there.
On the ward, attendants delivered verbal and occasionally serious physical abuse to patients in the presence of other observing patients, some of whom (the pseudopatients) were writing it all down. Abusive behavior, on the other hand, terminated quite abruptly when other staff members were known to be coming. Staff are credible witnesses. Patients are not.
A nurse unbuttoned her uniform to adjust her brassiere in the presence of an entire ward of viewing men. One did not have the sense that she was being seductive. Rather, she didn't notice us. A group of staff persons might point to a patient in the dayroom and discuss him animatedly, as if he were not there.
One illuminating instance of depersonalization and invisibility occurred with regard to medications. All told, the pseudopatients were administered nearly 2100 pills.. - Only two were swallowed. The rest were either pocketed or deposited in the toilet. The pseudopatients were not alone in this. Although I have no precise records on how many patients rejected their medications, the pseudopatients frequently found the medications of other patients in the toilet before they deposited their own. As long as they were cooperative, their behavior and the pseudopatients' own in this matter, as in other important matters, went unnoticed throughout.
Reactions to such depersonalization among pseudopatients were intense. Although they had come to the hospital as participant observers and were fully aware that they did not "belong," they nevertheless found themselves caught up in and fighting the process of depersonalization.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LABELING AND DEPERSONALIZATION
Whenever the ratio of what is known to what needs to be known approaches zero, we tend to invent "knowledge"
and assume that we understand more than we actually do. We seem unable to acknowledge that we simply don't know. The needs for diagnosis and remedistion of behavioral and emotional problems are enormous. But rather than acknowledge that we are just embarking on understanding, we continue to label patients "schizophrenic," "manic-depressive," and "insane," as if in those words we had captured the essence of understanding.
The facts of the matter are that we have known for a long time that diagnoses are often not useful or reliable, but we have nevertheless continued to use them. We now know that we cannot distinguish insanity from sanity. It is depressing to consider how that information will be used.
Not merely depressing, but frightening. How many people, one wonders, are sane but not recognized as such in our psychiatric institutions? How many have been needlessly stripped of their privileges of citizenship, from the right to vote and drive to that of handling their own accounts? How many have feigned insanity in order to avoid the criminal consequences of their behavior, and, conversely, how many would rather stand trial than live interminably in a psychiatric bhospital but are wrongly thought to be mentally ill? How many have been stigmatized by weil-intentioned, but nevertheless erroneous, diagnoses?. . . Psychiatric diagnoses are rarely found to be in error. The label sticks, a mark of inadequacy forever.
Finally, how many patients might be "sane" outside the psychiatric hospital but seem insane in it--not because their illness resides in them, as it were, but because they are responding to a bizarre setting, one that may be unique to institutions which harbor nether people? Goffman (4) calls the process of socialization to such institutions "mortification"--an apt metaphor that includes the processes of depersonalization that have been described here. And while it is impossible to know whether the pseudopatients' responses to these processes are characteristic of all inmates-they were, after all, not real patientst--is difficult to believe that these processes of socialization to a psychiatric hospital provide useful attitudes or habits of response for living in the "real world."
http://members.aol.com/ahunter3/psych_inmates_libfront/vol_2/Rosenhan/rosenhan.html
Catalog of dialup numbers?
You really don't know what you're talking about, do you? LOL! And no, I have no affiliation with TLXX past or present. It's just a hoot and a half watching one of the lamest pumpadump attempts I've ever seen.
And in other (very strange) news...
Man treated after attempting to nail himself to cross
HARTLAND (AP) ? A Hartland man was treated at a Pittsfield hospital after he nailed himself to a cross. The 23-year-old man apparently was trying to commit suicide Thursday evening in his living room, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Somerset County Sheriff Barry DeLong said Monday that no charges will be filed. "There is no crime here," he said.
Police said the man appeared delusional and told them he had been "seeing pictures of God on the computer." He told them he had not seen the hit movie "The Passion of the Christ," which depicts the Crucifixion of Jesus.
Lt. Pierre Boucher said the man took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed them on the floor. He attached a suicide sign to the wood and then proceeded to nail one of his hands to the makeshift cross using a 14-penny nail and a hammer.
"When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911," Boucher said.
It was unclear whether the man was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing down his other hand.
Hartland Fire Department members responded, said Boucher, and cut off the wood while it was still attached to the man's hand. The wood and the victim were taken to Sebasticook Valley Hospital, where the nail was removed.
Boucher said he did not know whether the man received further treatment.
Stranger than fiction! LOL!
http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/040316crossguy.shtml
The other reforms in the proposal would eliminate the naked short issue as I understand it. Have you read the entire comment release or just the summary I posted? The intent of the SEC and indeed NASD is clear--they want to eliminate the certificate completely and move to an all-electonic system. Ultimately, it's inevitable, but there has to be enough safeguards to protect against abuses.
Also, bear in mind this is a comment release--a feeler if you will. They are soliciting commentary and are a long, long way from making any formal changes of this magnitude. I think that the comments, especially those from within the industry, should be very interesting.
Concept Release: Securities Transactions Settlement
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
17 CFR PART 240
[RELEASE NO. 33-8398; 34-49405; IC-26384; FILE NO. S7-13-04]
RIN 3235-AJ19
AGENCY: Securities and Exchange Commission.
ACTION: Concept release; Request for comment.
SUMMARY: The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") is seeking comment on methods to improve the safety and operational efficiency of the U.S. clearance and settlement system and to help the U.S. securities industry achieve straight-through processing. First, the Commission is seeking comment on whether the Commission should adopt a new rule or the self-regulatory organizations should be required to amend their existing rules to require the completion of the confirmation and affirmation process on trade date ("T+0") when a broker-dealer provides delivery-versus-payment or receive-versus-payment privileges to a customer. Second, the Commission is seeking comment on the benefits and costs associated with implementing a settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions that is shorter than three days ("T+3"). Third, the Commission is seeking comment on reducing the use of physical securities.
http://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/33-8398.htm
Concept Release: Securities Transactions Settlement
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
17 CFR PART 240
[RELEASE NO. 33-8398; 34-49405; IC-26384; FILE NO. S7-13-04]
RIN 3235-AJ19
AGENCY: Securities and Exchange Commission.
ACTION: Concept release; Request for comment.
SUMMARY: The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") is seeking comment on methods to improve the safety and operational efficiency of the U.S. clearance and settlement system and to help the U.S. securities industry achieve straight-through processing. First, the Commission is seeking comment on whether the Commission should adopt a new rule or the self-regulatory organizations should be required to amend their existing rules to require the completion of the confirmation and affirmation process on trade date ("T+0") when a broker-dealer provides delivery-versus-payment or receive-versus-payment privileges to a customer. Second, the Commission is seeking comment on the benefits and costs associated with implementing a settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions that is shorter than three days ("T+3"). Third, the Commission is seeking comment on reducing the use of physical securities.
http://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/33-8398.htm
News from the US District Court in Nevada.
Case Number: CV-N-03-0463 - ECR-VPC
Securities and Exchange Commission VS Gabor S. Acs and Penny King Holdings, Inc
The court has granted a motion for a default judgment against Penny King Holdings Inc. The court had ruled that Acs was not permitted to plead before the court on behalf of the PHKI corporation, and he was unable to secure an attorney, so the court granted the SEC's motion for a default judgment. The case against Acs personally will likely continue as he may plead on his own behalf as an individual.
mmayr- You know that Penny King Holdings, Free and Clear Foundations of America and Gabor S. Acs are for all intents and purposes the same. Acs has admitted as such in his own pleadings before the court. Therefore, if PKHI/FCFA/GSA is the holder of a majority of TLXX shares the SEC case against him is important background in terms of the character of the ownership of the corporation.
I have no 'bones to pick' with g!, rather it seems to be the other way 'round lately. I think he's hilarious, but I don't believe a word that he writes. Can you point out anything that has actually been accomplished in all the years of grandiose schemes outlined in outrageous press releases?
As for TLXX, it's a dead company, killed off by the greed of its management and toxic financing. If FCFA/GSA would make the mechanics of its acquisition of control public with proper SEC filings, I might have some respect for what is going on; but all I have seen since last summer is a series of typically tantalizingly almost credible yet irrelevant press releases about new board members that fueled a brief pumpadump. As long as it's non-reporting pink-sheet trash, it will be treated as such.
So what exactly is your affiliation with Acs, anyway?
News from the US District Court in Nevada.
Case Number: CV-N-03-0463 - ECR-VPC
Securities and Exchange Commission VS Gabor S. Acs and Penny King Holdings, Inc
The court has granted a motion for a default judgment against Penny King Holdings Inc. The court had ruled that Acs was not permitted to plead before the court on behalf of the corporation, and he was unable to secure an attorney, so the court granted the SEC's motion for a default judgment. The case against Acs personally will continue as he may plead on his own behalf as an individual.
U.S. oil tanker law could raise gasoline prices
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
By Tom Doggett, Reuters
WASHINGTON ? U.S. gasoline supplies could be in
short supply this summer, and pump prices may skyrocket
even more because of a new law that would ban oil
tankers from entering U.S. ports if the ships fail to meet
security standards.
Beginning on July 1, the United Nations is requiring all
ships and ports around the world to comply with tough
international antiterror procedures that were adopted
after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The new standards will kick in at the height of the busy
U.S. summer driving season, when refineries are
producing as much gasoline as possible. U.S. retail
gasoline prices are already at near-record highs and
expected to continue rising.
The United States depends on oil imports to meet almost
60 percent of its daily petroleum demand.
But the U.S. Coast Guard said it does not plan any special
treatment for oil and gas tankers and will ban ships from
entering ports if necessary.
"We aren't taking any different stance on the oil and gas
(shipments)," said agency spokeswoman Jolie Shifflet.
"Owners and operators of oil and gas tankers should
expect to encounter the same kind of security
inspections as all the other international vessels that are
coming into the U.S."
While turning back a ship is the most severe response,
the Coast Guard could also take less drastic action
against violators, such as boarding and inspecting
tankers.
The U.S. market needs every barrel of oil and gasoline it
can get as the the Energy Department forecast last week
that retail motor fuel prices this summer will reach a
record high.
"The prospects for oil prices diminishing significantly
prior to the driving season have weakened and there is a
high likelihood of additional gasoline price increases,"
the department's Energy Information Administration
said in its latest forecast.
The new security guidelines cover all goods,
commodities, and merchandise transported aboard ships.
But U.S. motorists could feel an immediate impact at the
pump if tankers carrying gasoline from ports that are not
in compliance are banned from docking in American
waters.
Shifflet would not say if the Coast Guard is worried that
some major oil producing nations might not meet the
security standards, which are being overseen by the
London-based International Maritime Organization
(IMO).
OPEC members that are reportedly behind schedule in
meeting the July 1 deadline include Saudi Arabia,
Nigeria, Indonesia, Kuwait, and the United Arab
Emirates.
IMO officials could not immediately be reached for
comment.
The new standards require ships and ports to develop
plans for assessing threats that could cause significant
lost of life or property damage and adopt security
measures to mitigate those risks.
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-17/s_14090.asp
(Ya gotta love the acronym for the International Maritime Organization, IMO. LOL! --DD)
Has a radio show?
http://www.mmfn.net/About.asp
This one's interesting, g!
It would seem that 'shareholder audits' could be quite lucrative and a natural addition to the services offered by stock promoters who work for the purported victim companies of height-challenged nudists.
But haven't US courts essentially ruled that companies have no standing to bring suit for short-selling abuses? Weren't the NUTK and GMXX lawsuits dismissed on that basis?
"There is but one way to win, and that is to do your work well and speak ill of no one, not even as a matter of truth."
--Elbert Hubbard
"If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else."
--Yogi Berra
Right, occams_razor... Don't criticize g!'s poetry. He's very touchy about that. LOL!
mmayr- I doubt that Lycos really cares at this point. They let their trademark image of the 'raging bull' expire. (See USPTO records) Do you think Martin Scorcese or Jake LaMotta are concerned? LOL!
Seriously, since the court records are actually in the name of an individual named 'Keener', and there doesn't seem to be a class action, what we have is another reference to an old press release by one who didn't bother to check the facts first.
3 former Knight Trading workers get Wells notices
Associated Press
JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Three former employees of Knight Trading Group Inc., a top market maker in Nasdaq stocks, have received Wells notices from federal regulators informing them they could be subject to enforcement or disciplinary actions, the company said Monday.
Knight Trading said earlier this month that the Securities and Exchange Commission and National Association of Securities Dealers issued Wells notices to the company's Knight Securities L.P. unit and its founder and former chief executive, Kenneth D. Pasternak.
The notice from the SEC Division of Enforcement said its investigations relate to trading, supervision and record-keeping from 1999 through 2001, focusing in particular on whether the company traded in front of client orders.
In its annual report issued Monday, Knight Trading said that three other former employees also received Wells notices. The company did not identify them.
Wells notices offer those receiving them an opportunity to explain why regulators shouldn't pursue enforcement or disciplinary actions.
The notices came from both the SEC and NASD, company spokeswoman Margaret Wyrwas said Monday. The company would have no further comment, she said.
Knight Trading said it did not expect the resolution of the SEC and NASD investigations to have a serious adverse effect on the company's financial condition, but the annual report said the probes could have a material impact on operating results in a particular period.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8191521.htm
Indeed, mmayr, the case apparently isn't a class action.
8:03-cv-00421 Keener v. Ameritrade Holding et al (PAPER FILE)
Thomas M. Shanahan, presiding
Pro Se Docket, referral
Date filed: 10/10/2003 Date of last filing: 02/20/2004
Docket Information and Related Docket Entries
Case 8:03-cv-00421 Document 1
Filed by Denton L. Keener
Filed: 10/10/2003
Entered: 10/16/2003
Entered By: KBJ
Event Name(s): Complaint
Full Docket Text for Document 1:
COMPLAINT with jury demand against all defendants; Ameritrade Holding, Gene L. Finn, Knight Trading Group, Robert M. Lazarowitz, Kenneth D. Pasternak, Walter F. Raquet, J. Joe Ricketts, and Steven L. Steinman. No Summonses issued, with receipt number 817347, in the amount of $ 150.00; filed by Plaintiff, Denton L. Keener (Attachments: # (1))(KBJ)
8:03-cv-00421 Keener v. Ameritrade Holding et al (PAPER FILE)
Thomas M. Shanahan, presiding
Pro Se Docket, referral
Date filed: 10/10/2003 Date of last filing: 02/20/2004
Parties
Ameritrade Holding
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Patrick B. Griffin
KUTAK ROCK, LLP
1650 Farnam Street
Omaha, NE 68102-2186
(402) 346-6000
(402) 346-1148 (fax)
patrick.griffin@kutakrock.com
Assigned: 12/15/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Robert J. Kriss
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-7165
(312) 706-8646 (fax)
rkriss@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Joshua D. Yount
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-8423
(312) 706-8521 (fax)
jyount@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Gene L. Finn
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 01/16/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Patrick B. Griffin
KUTAK ROCK, LLP
1650 Farnam Street
Omaha, NE 68102-2186
(402) 346-6000
(402) 346-1148 (fax)
patrick.griffin@kutakrock.com
Assigned: 12/15/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Robert J. Kriss
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-7165
(312) 706-8646 (fax)
rkriss@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Joshua D. Yount
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-8423
(312) 706-8521 (fax)
jyount@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Denton L. Keener
177 Walnut Street
Suite 9
Waynesville, NC 28786
(828) 734-2097
Added: 10/10/2003
(Plaintiff)
PRO SE
Knight Trading Group
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Janet A. Beer
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3418
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
jbeer@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kristen L. Hauser
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3000
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
khauser@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Theresa D. Koller
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5017
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tkoller@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Angela M. Lisec
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
alisec@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thorn Rosenthal
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3823
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
trosenthal@cahill.com
Assigned: 12/19/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Robert M. Lazarowitz
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Janet A. Beer
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3418
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
jbeer@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kristen L. Hauser
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3000
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
khauser@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Theresa D. Koller
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5017
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tkoller@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Angela M. Lisec
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
alisec@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thorn Rosenthal
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3823
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
trosenthal@cahill.com
Assigned: 12/19/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kenneth D. Pasternak
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Janet A. Beer
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3418
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
jbeer@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Theresa D. Koller
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5017
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tkoller@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Angela M. Lisec
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
alisec@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thorn Rosenthal
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3823
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
trosenthal@cahill.com
Assigned: 12/19/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Walter F. Raquet
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Janet A. Beer
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3418
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
jbeer@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kristen L. Hauser
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3000
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
khauser@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Theresa D. Koller
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5017
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tkoller@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Angela M. Lisec
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
alisec@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thorn Rosenthal
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3823
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
trosenthal@cahill.com
Assigned: 12/19/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
J. Joe Ricketts
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 01/16/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Patrick B. Griffin
KUTAK ROCK, LLP
1650 Farnam Street
Omaha, NE 68102-2186
(402) 346-6000
(402) 346-1148 (fax)
patrick.griffin@kutakrock.com
Assigned: 12/15/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Robert J. Kriss
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-7165
(312) 706-8646 (fax)
rkriss@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Joshua D. Yount
MAYER, BROWN LAW FIRM
190 South LaSalle Street
36th Floor, Suite 3900
Chicago, IL 60603-3441
(312) 701-8423
(312) 706-8521 (fax)
jyount@mayerbrownrowe.com
Assigned: 12/31/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Steven L. Steinman
Added: 10/10/2003
(Defendant) represented by Janet A. Beer
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3418
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
jbeer@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas H. Dahlk
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tdahlk@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kristen L. Hauser
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3000
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
khauser@cahill.com
Assigned: 01/08/04
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Theresa D. Koller
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5017
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
tkoller@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Angela M. Lisec
BLACKWELL, SANDERS LAW FIRM - NEBRASKA
1620 Dodge Street
Suite 2100
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 964-5000
(402) 964-5050 (fax)
alisec@blackwellsanders.com
Assigned: 12/16/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thorn Rosenthal
CAHILL, GORDON LAW FIRM
80 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005
(212) 701-3823
(212) 269-5420 (fax)
trosenthal@cahill.com
Assigned: 12/19/03
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
mmayr- Please read news releases more carefully. I think you'll find that Raging Bull Holdings has nothing whatsoever to do with Lycos' Raging Bull message boards.
To the best of my knowledge, yes...
...unless of course I'm joking. LOL!
You on the other hand, have issued (through your organizations) numerous press releases that are so outlandish that one cannot easily tell whether or not they're parody.
You don't seem to read very well, g!
I wrote that I am not aware that the SEC has ever paid out a bounty for reporting inside trading. It seems to me that if they did, they would publicize it. I've sent in a few reports to that program...some scenarios where I had reasonable certainty that inside transactions had occurred...but have never heard about any prosecution in those cases. Not enough publicity value perhaps.
g! There IS one bounty program that I am aware of, and that is that the SEC will pay a bounty--something like 10% of funds recovered--for information leading to a successful prosecution of insider trading offenses. I don't know if they've ever paid out a bounty however. I've never heard of one and there is no reference to any actual payment on the SEC site.
Here's a link to the SEC's page on the topic:
http://www.sec.gov/answers/bounty.htm
I have written many times on RB that I send material to the SEC. I've sent reports about apparently fraudulent stocks to other regulators and to the FBI as well. Here is the result of one of those civic-minded reports:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/34-45055.htm
I've never been compensated in any form for posting, or for my research efforts to uncover the realities of penny trash stocks. I don't believe that there are 'finder fees' being paid to citizens who report suspicious activities to the authorities. I personally wouldn't accept any even if they were available.
Here are a few links you may find useful:
SEC:
http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml
FBI:
http://sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/securitiesfraud.htm
NASAA:
http://www.nasaa.org/nasaa/enforcement/cf_report.asp
As you can plainly see, each of these organizations actively encourages participation by the general public. Maybe if you would consider such participation as a kind of securities 'neighborhood watch', it will make more sense to you.
By the way, g! There is no need to threaten me. If you think you know who I am, pick up the phone and call so we can have a nice chat.
Only one quick comment, G!...
Paragraphs. Learn to use 'em. LOL!
LOL, G!
You're not very good at disguises, are you?
Scam 101...
This section refers only to schemes used by unlicensed brokers whose cases of securities fraud have been reported to SIRS:
The brokers are using an inherit flaw in the US Securities Exchange System (as well as other exchange systems) which allows market makers to quote a price based on free trading shares which is only guaranteed for a small amount of shares, not all the free trading shares. To make matters worse, the exchange system does not require companies to list what percentage of shares the stock price represents of all shares (restricted and free trading). This is one of the major factors contributing to the problem of stock price not reflecting ownership and worth of the company. The fact that the offshore share market is not regulated does not help the situation at all.
To pull off such schemes requires the coordination and willingness to engage in unethical behavior for unjustified sums of money by professionals in the United States, Canada, and other market nations. These professionals plead ignorance of their client?s intent. Even if they are truly ignorant, they should have done some investigation and due diligence, which would have uncovered the scheme. The professionals are at least guilty of gross negligence, if not more, depending on their degree of involvement.
The professionals provide the services necessary to create the illusion of legitimate shares. Without their cooperation, none of these schemes would have worked so well, if at all. Below is a list of the professionals typically used and legislation / procedures that need to be added to prevent abuse by these professionals in the United States (and in other countries exchanges to varying degrees).
Company Frontman ? Entrepreneur whose business plan and credentials make or give the illusion of making the investment appealing.
Needed: Civil, criminal, and credit background checks should be required of all directors, key management, and investors (regardless of amount) once a company is issuing shares (public or private). Such checks should also be made on directors, key managers, and significant investors (exceeding $100,000) that come on board at any time after shares are outstanding.
Company Shell Provider ? A broker who buys and sells old public company shells once they are no longer active.
Needed: The US Securities Laws need to be changed to require public companies to maintain a minimum level of revenue activity to maintain public status and sale of such public shells needs to be monitored and possibly regulated. This would eliminate the misuse of reverse mergers to bypass the necessary investigations to make sure that companies trading are viable and legitimate.
Certified Professional Accountant ? Who provides the audited financials that are used by the securities lawyer in the public SEC filings.
Needed: Changes to the SEC filing procedures are required so that clear warning labels are put on public filings for companies that in the past 12 months have conducted reverse stock splits, issued more than 10% of existing stock, increased their total debt by 10%, and / or had decrease of 10% in equity. The fact that a company has warning labels then would need to be indicated with all securities listings in any form of media.
Securities Lawyer ? Lawyers who register the company with the SEC to be traded on the market.
Needed: The US laws need to make lawyers criminally accountable for aiding clients who run such schemes. Ignorance is not a defense for the common person, there should be no exception for the legal profession.
Market Maker ? Industry experts who ?appraise? the company and its potential with respect to its given market to guarantee a value on a limited amount of stock.
Needed: Market Makers should be monitored and given a rating based on their prior ?appraisal? accuracy. For every time they are correct, or at least very close to the mark, they should receive points. The more points, the more accurate and experienced the market maker. Their rating should be published alongside the price they quote.
Press Release Agency ? The organizations the companies and promoters use to ?hype? up the company.
Needed: The warning labeling mentioned above should be mandatory and accompany every press release. Any press release without the labeling should be open for both the company and press release agency to be legally liable.
Securities Transfer Agency ? The Transfer Agency is responsible for the issuing of certificates, annual reports, and share holder meeting information.
Needed: The Transfer Agency should be held liable if it does not report a public company to the SEC for not providing required information in a timely manner to redistribute to the share holders.
Bank Manager ? The bank managers who provide the accounts for the promoters and companies.
Needed: The banks are required to report any transfer of funds over USD 10000 to the government. The problem lies in the lack of content and background checking submitted in such information. In order to catch money laundering, additional information should be required from the bank manager to submit when reporting such transfers.
Once all the professionals are setup and in place, the brokerage firms can begin to cold call their victims. The lists are purchased from a variety of source such as telemarketing firms, other unlicensed brokerage firms, and even government databases from civil servants who feel violating a citizens right to privacy is worth up to $20 per name. The target victim market consists primarily of business owners. They are the ideal victims in that they usually have little time to investigate, have plenty of funds available to make such investments, listen for opportunity and willing to take calculated risks.
The unlicensed brokerage firms tend to operate in countries where police corruption and political bribery provide an ideal business environment for these organizations. They typically will rent out either a mailbox or even go as far as a serviced office-front in reputable countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States. However, the main selling is done in countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, and Hong Kong. These are the locations where the victims usually need to send their funds, paperwork, etc? Even those brokerage firms who have victims send their funds to the United States are themselves not operating out of the United States for otherwise they would fall within jurisdiction of the US law authorities who could close down the operations and seize the assets as was portrayed in the Hollywood film, Boiler Room.
The roles of the personnel in unlicensed brokerage firms are as follows:
Receptionist ? These are usually locals that are paid very well for their country, but the pay can be as little as $20 per day. These are the front door people to the unlicensed brokerage firm, there are no direct numbers to get a hold of the broker, and they are always either in a meeting, on the john, or on the market floor.
Opener ? These are usually fresh recruits, some using their real names, but most told to use fake names. Very few openers are truly in the dark as to the operations. The fact that they are paid salary and commissions well above the industry average should be a red flag. Those that are in the dark, when they discover the truth are either scared into submission or are brought into the action and promoted to the position of loader. The opener is there to entice the victim, get their trust, and confirm their ability and likelihood to part with their hard-earned money.
Loader ? The loader is to make the hard sell. These are people that have worked their way up from being an opener or have had previous securities sales experience in their own country but have either had their license revoked or are purely interested in the 10% commissions (5-10 times the industry average). The loaders are knee deep in the scam. They use fake names and clearly know what is going on in the operation.
Closer ? The closer is there to make sure the victim sends the money. The victim almost never deals with the same closer twice. The unlicensed brokerage firms do not want the victim and the closer to build a close relationship which might arouse suspicion in the mind of the closer or the victim. The degree to which closers are aware of the scam varies.
Associate ? Associates are the sergeants of the scam army. These individuals are waist deep in the scam and are called in to help the loaders with victims on the fence and large account victims. They typically have Vice President in their titles. They get a percentage of the commissions as well are part of the profit sharing.
General Manager ? These individuals are the officers of the scam army. The General Manager usually operates anywhere from 1-3 brokerage firms for the principal benefactor. They usually have the title of President and are paid handsomely for their ability to run such professional appearing operations. General Managers are generally promoted from within the ranks of successful associates but occasionally ex-freelance con artists with previous scam experience are brought in.
Director ? These individuals are lawyers, securities experts, accountants, and other professionals who are trusted confidants of the principal benefactor. They are either directors of the unlicensed brokerage firms and entrusted with the securities scam aspect or are directors of the companies being sold by the unlicensed brokers. Many of these individuals are willing to be directors because they are confident that no matter what, there is no way to hold them personally and legally accountable for their actions. If the scam is uncovered, they claim they are shareholder victims as well and seek a tax write-off for the ?loss?.
Principal Benefactor ? These are the generals of the scam army. These are the masterminds of the scam operations. Their names are never directly associated with any of the companies or brokerage firms involved. Instead, they have multiple companies own each other which coincidentally are all owned by the principal benefactor or by a relative. All the principal benefactors used to be general managers who have either struck out on their own or have ?inherited? their operations from former principal benefactors who have gone into retirement. The principal benefactor can afford legions of lawyers using a large war chest of ill-gotten gains from tens of thousands of victims worldwide.
Promoter ? These special individuals either ?recruit? companies by posing as investors or just plain fabricate the companies. They coordinate and organize the professionals used in the United States, Canada, UK, and Australia to get the shares on the market and the illusion of market performance. An expert promoter can earn upwards of a million dollars for setting up companies which are able to bilk tens of millions of dollars out of thousands of ?investors?.
The following is a list of schemes that are currently being offered to cold-called victims.
Pump ?n Dump ? This is the most prevalent scam currently on the market. However, with recent media exposure, this scheme is on the decline. The victims are offered to invest in a small amount of shares (usually worth USD 5000) to ?test the waters.? The promoter tells the market maker to pump up the price and the broker calls again after the price has gone up to get the victim to buy more shares. This time they try to get them to buy at least ten times the previous amount (usually USD 50000). This cycle sometime repeats a couple of times and then comes the downturn. The downturn serves two purposes. The first is to create pressure on the victims to be willing to switch into other shares (and pay a bit more). The second is to lower the price far enough that the shares can be issued and not violate the dollar limit the restricted shares were allowed to be issued for when the securities lawyer submitted the filing on behalf of their less than ethical clients. With the price spiraling down from dollars per share down to cents per share, the broker calls up and apologizes for the poor performance and has ?talked their manager? into allowing the victim to switch over to another stock that may or may not be trading. The victim will usually be swapped into the other shares at no loss to their original purchase price of the old shares but need to buy some additional shares in the new stock (usually worth USD 5000). The victim is usually willing to put in another USD 5000 rather than loose the whole investment. This results in more money from the victim and now the broker has an excuse and reason for the delay in issuing share certificates.
Switch and Bait ? This is exactly the same operation as the Pump ?n Dump scheme except that the shares being offered are in a company with an almost identical name to an actual viable and operating company. The victim is sent to the website of a legitimate private company which is attempting to go public for information. The principal benefactor of the unlicensed brokerage firm sometimes is an actual investor of the legitimate firm and takes the company information they receive, modify it slightly and use the altered information to sell shares in the company with the similar sounding name. The victim has bought worthless shares in bogus company.
Smoke and Mirrors ? This is another variant of the Pump ?n Dump scheme in that the company exists, the shares exist, everything seems on the up and up, however, the securities price is inflated well beyond its realizable value by a factor as much as fifty times the actual value. The unlicensed broker then usually resorts to issuing only shares to those who complain or are willing to wait until the share price is lowered far enough as to not violate the restricted securities covenants.
White Knight Swap ? This is a follow up from one of the above mentioned scheme. A new brokerage firm has supposedly bought the victim?s account from the former unlicensed brokerage firm and will ?save the day? by selling your existing shares non-performing shares for more then they are currently worth and put the funds into a trading account of their from which the victim can use the ?credit? as a partial payment for other shares that they are now offering that are just about to go big on the market?.deja vu?
Black Knight Swap ? Similar to the White Knight Swap, except that the cold caller supposedly works for either a legal or tax accounting firm that has a client that needs a tax write-off and is willing to buy the worthless shares (sometimes for more money than originally paid) and sell blue-chip shares. There are two variants. With the first variant, the value of the blue-chip shares is more than the new value of the worthless shares. The victim must send the difference and will then receive the blue-chip shares. The second variant is that the values are identical, but that a 20% ?security deposit? needs to be sent by the victim in order to ensure that the deal will be done. With either variant, the victim sends the money and receives nothing in return but a disconnected line.
Collection for Fee ? This last scheme is starting to gain some momentum as the securities fraud problem gets more media exposure. There are lawyers and debt collectors stating that they can recover funds from the unlicensed brokerage firms but need the victim to send funds in advance or be willing to sign a legal contract for payment of daily consulting fees. Short of taking the law into their own hands, the odds of recovering funds directly from the unlicensed brokerage firm are probably less than winning the lottery. Getting groups together to go after the professionals that helped make these schemes possible is more likely to get money back from the insurance companies that cover the professionals for malpractice.
A Sample of the Smoke and Mirrors scheme:
The principal benefactor indirectly owns and controls the majority of the free trading shares and sells all of its Reg 144 or Reg S shares through the unlicensed brokerage to "its clients" at prices anywhere from 15 to 40 times the purchase price and then manipulate the share price on the market by getting market makers to boost (and lower) the price of the free trading shares as they see fit. Since the NASDAQ does not keep track of offshore sales transactions of Reg 144 and Reg S shares, the price of the securities listed on the exchange market only reflects the buying and selling of free trading shares, the restricted shares are not mentioned anywhere. So the only way for a novice investor to know that something is wrong is if they checked the trading share volume and notice that the price is irrelevant of their purchase of restricted shares and therefore would need to be able to calculate the following formula (and the company or NASDAQ would need to provide the information regarding the variables):
Real Share Worth = (NASDAQ listed share price) x (Number of Free trading shares covered by market maker) / (Total Number of Free trading shares + Total Number of Restricted shares)
For example (using Smoke & Mirrors Company, Inc)
Real Share Worth = ($4.25 x 5,000) / 15,000,000 = 1.4/10 of a cent
Now the price goes up to $8
Real Share Worth = ($8.00 x 5,000) / 15,000,000 = 2.7/10 of a cent
The unlicensed brokerage sells the restricted shares for $3.50 to John Doe. He buys 20,000 shares for $75,750 (1% for commission fees). He believes he has already made $9,250 from the purchase which he is told is made possible since the unlicensed brokerage was able to offer these discounted shares. The unlicensed brokerage bought the shares at $0.25 per share from Smoke & Mirrors Company. The unlicensed brokerage has made a Net Revenue from the transaction of $70,750. All the while, the real value of John Doe's investment is $280.
The price is moved up to $8.00 per share by the market maker two months later, and John Doe is again contacted by his friends at the unlicensed brokerage. He believes his shares are now worth $160,000 and his net worth has increased by $84,250 in just two months!!! That is a Return on Investment (ROI) of almost 800%. With that kind of return, he is very amiable to the suggestion to invest in another 10,000 shares at $7.50 and sends another $75,750 to the accounts of Non- Jurisdiction Bank that the unlicensed brokerage has instructed the funds be transferred to. John Doe believes he has just made another $4,250 instantaneously.
In total here are the figures to demonstrate the severity of the problem.
Perceived value of shares owned by John Doe: $240,000
Actual value of shares owned by John Doe: $ 550
Money Transferred by John Doe to Non-Jurisdiction Bank: $151,500
Net Revenue for The Unlicensed brokerage from deal: $144,000
Perceived amount invested in Smoke & Mirrors Company: $150,000
Actual amount invested in Smoke & Mirrors Company: $ 7,500
None of this manipulation of figures would be possible if the securities exchange market accepted reforms proposed back in 1991 when the problem was first brought to light. A complete overhaul of the securities exchange system needs to occur immediately before the lack of consumer confidence in the securities exchange system reach critical levels and bring the exchanges to a grinding halt. The impact on the global economy would make the Great Depression seem like a dress rehearsal. The current system of raising public funds is so cumbersome, inefficient, that the very nature of the current system attracts criminal elements. The current financial indicators have little bearing on actual company performance. The indicators were developed centuries ago when demand outstripped supply and the financial reports on tangible assets reflected 90% of the company?s value. Today, most companies have less than 5% tangible assets and accountants have developed so many creative accounting practices that indicators, financials, and market value bear almost no resemblance to actual company performance or future potential earnings. It is quite ironic, the company that was going to show the real value of companies to replace today?s flawed and archaic system was itself a victim of this securities fraud scam. The Emperor has no clothes, but everyone better say that he is wearing the most beautiful outfit in the world or else everyone will see the naked truth.
http://www.ic-community.co.uk/IC_UBB/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000241.html
Advertisements
Stocklemon Responds to Allegations Made by YP.NET Inc.
CHECKMATE
On January 8, 2004, Stocklemon released a report on YP.Net. YP.Net has gone through much effort to defend itself. Stocklemon would now like to go on record as saying the company is not as bad as reported in the first article.
IT IS MUCH WORSE
More...
http://www.stocklemon.com/articles/01_12_04.html
Stocklemon, like Our-Street, another popular scambusting site, does attribute its claims and statements with links to source material. Are either of them 'front-running' their publications? The companies they expose think so of course. Are they credible? I think their track records answer that question.
g! I think you've met your match. LOL!
The good dentist surely can rant with the best of 'em.
Fix the rules, and enforce 'em hard!
How Did We Get in This Mess?
We've seen that all government activities require coercion--violence or the threat of it.
You can always locate the coercion if you look for it.
First, the activity probably costs money--which was taken by force from people, whether or not they wanted the program. Almost no one volunteers to pay taxes.
Second, people are coerced to participate in the program. Business people are forced to fill out piles of forms to show they have complied with the law. Companies must submit to endless inspections of their products and procedures. Home owners may have their property taken away--or rendered useless--by provisions of the law.
One way or another, many people will be forced to do what they don't want to do--or will be forbidden to do what they do want to do.
If you fail to comply, you may be forced to pay a fine or may even be sent to prison. This can happen even if you are a peaceful, productive citizen--someone who has committed no violence against anyone, has stolen from no one, and hasn't defrauded anyone.
After all the lesser penalties have been exhausted--the demands, the fines, the seizure of your house, the jail sentence--if you continue to resist, the government will use a gun. The gun is always there.
The gun is the essence of a law.
When someone asks for a government program, he is saying in effect, "Tell the police to use their guns to get me what I want."
See No Evil
The beneficiaries of a program (the people receiving subsidies, companies protected from competition, or people whose values are imposed upon the community) usually don't notice the coercion that's applied for their benefit. So it's easy for them to believe the government's efforts are wholly benevolent.
If the beneficiaries had to do the dirty work themselves--use a gun to steal the money or force people out of their homes or their jobs--they might have mixed emotions about the benefits they're receiving.
If they even just had to stand and watch as companies are shut down, businessmen lose their life savings, employees lose their jobs, homeowners are evicted, and other people are hurt by the government's coercion, the beneficiaries might not be so eager to claim a "right" to their subsidies.
But they aren't required to see the dark side of the program at all. That is what has made government such a success in the coercion business:
Through government, people can take from others without having to face the people being hurt.
And this assures that government will grow and grow and grow:
Because the beneficiaries are never told who has been hurt and how, there is no limit to how much they'll ask from the government.
Because so many of those not yet benefiting from a government program are oblivious to the damage government does, there is no limit to the number of people who will clamor to join those getting the benefits.
Because the politicians aren't legally liable for the human lives they wreck, there is no limit to the coercion they will vote for.
And because the people hurt by government aren?t masochists, they will try to avoid the coercion--assuring that the government will have to keep strengthening the program to make it work.
This means government programs inevitably grow ? no matter what their initial "limits." It means that those being coerced will participate grudgingly--producing much less revenue, information, and cooperation than was assumed when the program was enacted. It means the programs won't work as promised.
Programs based on coercion don't work.
This is why government programs don't work.
And this is why "fixing them" doesn't work.
The program will work only if you take the coercion out of it:
So that the beneficiaries must pay full value for what they receive;
So that everyone involved has an incentive to produce what's wanted;
So that no one can distribute money that doesn't belong to him.
But if you take the coercion out of a program, you no longer need the government to run it.
And that's the point: government programs don't work. There has to be a better way.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
As we can see, there is no such thing as a little coercion--any more than a woman can be a little bit pregnant.
Coercive programs almost always fail--and on the way to failure they get bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive.
So maybe now we can see why and when the government became the unworkable monster it is today.
The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves.
From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line.
Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it. If the coercion of government can endow one person with property he hasn't earned, then everyone will want to use government to get something he wants. So it's not surprising that, over the past two centuries, more and more people have concluded that they deserve government's help.
"Helping those who can't help themselves" is a paraphrase of Karl Marx's famous dictum: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
And once that principle is adopted, more and more people will want to be part of the needy, rather than part of the able--because nearly everyone prefers to be on the "to" side of transfers, rather than the "from" side.
You can't help a few people without everyone else wanting to be helped as well.
You can't limit government's coercion to just those transfers you believe are fair, because you can't give government the power to force good on the country without also giving it the power to force enormous evil on the country--in fact, to do anything it wants. It becomes a tool for obtaining whatever anyone can't get on his own--an instrument for every frustrated ambition.
So it was inevitable not only that the government would grow and become more powerful, but that the growth would accelerate--perhaps imperceptibly at first, but then faster and faster. The potential beneficiaries (as well as Congress, the executive, and the bureaucrats) have an interest in pushing government to get bigger.
And since politicians aren't legally liable for the harm they do, there's no point at which they have a reason to stop expanding their own power and wealth by expanding the government. Thus it's no surprise that after stripping us bare, they continue on and mortgage our children's future to pay for further expansion.
Nor is it a surprise that people elected to change the system usually join it instead. After all, once elected, these people have the power of big government at their disposal--and power is a heady commodity. Few can resist the temptation to use it to "do good"--to receive the applause of reformers and the gratitude of those on the receiving end of government favors.
And it should be no surprise that every attempt to reform government simply makes it worse. "Reform" won't transform a gorilla into a lamb, and politicians and administrators who have spent their lives seeking power aren't suddenly going to decide not to use it.
It Was Inevitable
It's understandable that people believe government can protect us and educate our children, but that something has gone wrong and needs fixing.
But the system must go wrong eventually. A government that can tax us--confiscate our wealth--to feed the poor and punish foreign villains will soon tax us to feed political cronies and punish political enemies.
If government has the power to keep criminals off the streets, it has the power to keep you off them, too.
And it has the power to subsidize companies that put campaign contributions in the right pockets. It has the power to breed a mass of welfare clients who will be completely dependent on government, and who will vote to make it grow.
Any system that lets one person force his will on another--by confiscating resources or by compelling obedience--will inevitably break down, because everyone will want to use the coercion for his own ends. And so, sooner or later, government becomes a free-for-all to be won by those best able to deceive and manipulate.
To maintain their tenure and power, politicians have to make deals with more and more interest groups until, eventually, most of the government's resources are consumed just buying votes and satisfying political backers. This leaves almost nothing for true crime control, education, or other functions you may think are government's proper business.
So it's perfectly natural to reach the point we have now, where government fails utterly in its traditional functions while meddling in things once considered no business of government--taking over the health care system, trying to police the planet, laying down millions of rules for companies to follow, subsidizing everything from art to zoology.
A government that tries to help those who can?t help themselves will turn into a government that helps those with the most political power.
A government we try to use as our servant inevitably will become our master.
And a government formed to do for the people what they can?t do so well for themselves will instead do to the people what they don?t want done.
http://snipurl.com/3n4k
Why sue in the US Court of Federal Claims?
Aren't the US District courts the proper venue for tort cases such as claims of 'negligence'? I'm not an attorney, so I may be misinterpreting this.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims, formerly the U.S. Claims Court, was established in 1982 as the successor to the trial division of the Court of Claims, which had been in existence since 1855. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has nationwide jurisdiction over a variety of cases, including tax refunds, federal taking of private property for public use, constitutional and statutory rights of military personnel and their dependents, back-pay demands from civil servants claiming unjust dismissal, persons injured by childhood vaccines, and federal government contractors suing for breach of contract. Most suits against the government for money damages in excess of $10,000 must be tried here. However, the district courts have exclusive jurisdiction over tort claims (a civil wrong or breach of duty) and concurrent jurisdiction over tax refunds.
http://www.uscourts.gov/understanding_courts/89921.htm