NO QUARTER FOR CORRUPTION (Focussing on The Fed./FRBS)

[bartermania]

Monday, May 02, 2005

As Long As They Spell Your Pseudonym Right
After reading the latest Reuters article, I can make a few observations:

1) An awful lot of energy has gone into demonizing me, by all the usual suspects - pet reporters at Barrons who are more than acquaintances with Marc and the Lapdog. Reuters. What's next? I can't believe we haven't seen lapdog or WSJ pieces yet, or AP from Carol Remond. Those are always the usual suspects, so I can make a prediction: You will likely see pieces in most or all of those - they are part of the hedge fund's network of lackey media, IMO. One does have to ask why any of this is even remotely newsworthy - Marc's publicly available address was posted on the web, along with inquiries as to the weather, and how his family is holding up. And a warning was issued that the hedge fund's gamebook is blown, and that it's time to move to a different playing field. Why all the noise? Answer: because Marc hasn't been able to find me or figure out my identity, and so he is latching onto a contrived issue, hoping to demonize me and smear my pseudonym, and maybe even enlist his local law enforcement into helping him figure out who I am. His crony at Gradient admitted that over a hundred hours have been spent, futilely trying to find me, so this is obviously his way of kicking it up a notch.

2) There was no threat, in either a legal sense, or a moral sense. This has been covered ad nauseum, but it bears repeating: Marc's name was not part of the address posting. How Marc gets from "How's the weather" and "how's the wife and kid" to kidnapping and killing is unknown, as is why he has studiously avoided the record of posts wherein the term "gamebook" have been used to describe the hedge fund world's illegal manipulative techniques involving paid message board bashers, libel, use of media to impact stock price, naked shorting, related party trading, foreign exchange manipulation via arbitrage, collusion with class action attorneys, and in essence, racketeering. Anyone as plugged in as Marc would know that when I say "do you still want to play" it involves the hedge fund's activities - it is a wildly long stretch to get anywhere else with that, so one does need to ask why all that distance is being covered with such eagerness and facility, even as he airs his son's disability (which I carefully stayed away from.) Answer: He wants to demonize me, and to do that he needs to ignore any data that detracts from his spurious position, as do his media sources. Simple. I am now too big a threat to their activities. And they want me silenced, at any cost, or smeared to the point where the message is ignored. Good luck with that.

3) It would be nice if the FBI/local police would take an interest in who posted Mary's information, and Harry of Anguslane's, all over the Web. Unlike Marc, who is a public figure and somewhat of a notorious financial system pseudo-celebrity (who wants to pretend that his address is secret, but doesn't acknowledge the reality that it is easily obtained from public search engines - the internet equivalent of the white pages, and that further he has the ability to remove it whenever he wants but has failed to take even those simple steps), these people are private citizens whose "crime" appears to have been pro-NFI and anti naked-shorting. That's it. Where are the articles condemning all that? Where are the task forces? The cries of outrage? It would further be nice to see the FBI take interest in the crews of bashers that clog the boards in what can only be called a workmanlike manner.

Here's the short version. In the past, Rocker Partners has tried to use the courts to find out the identities of message board posters. Those efforts failed miserably. This is a new variation, where a credulous, hand wringing, eye rolling claim of feeling threatened might just do the trick. My attorneys tell me this is silliness of the highest order. There is no threat. There never was one. There are pages now written describing, in excruciating detail, what each word meant, what was intended, blah blah blah. Anyone interested in understanding the exchange can, easily. And yet Marc pretends that is over his head. He just doesn't get it, and presumably is living in fear of "how's the weather." God knows what "nice day, isn't it" could mean, or how the hidden menace that is palpable in "how's your son holding up" will manifest. This really reminds me of the lapdog aberrational screed wherein he was convinced that Verizon shifting him from paper to paperless billing was evidence of a global conspiracy against him.

Maybe the Marin police don't have enough on their plates, and really need wealthy, pampered multi-millionaires complaining of imagined boogie men. Maybe the FBI needs to take their eye off the terrorist ball and hunt down the impossibly well hidden threat of Yahoo board posters. Somehow I doubt it. I can report that if any of these parties wanted to reach me, they can email me. Big surprise - they haven't. This is all noise to besmirch my nom de plume, as far as I can tell.

Because they don't want the message to get out, and apparently my efforts are causing them discomfort. So they use the media, and public opinion, and hyperbole, and rhetoric, all the while gnashing their teeth and shaking their fists, pretending to be the aggrieved parties.

Guys? This isn't China or Russia. Freedom of speech. Even if it threatens your little money making operation.

That's the latest. Now, I gotta get back onto the beach. So hopefully you will excuse my not staying glued to the screen to follow the every twist and turn of this.

I apologized for violating my ethical guidelines, and I meant it - it was sincere. But enough is enough.

BTW, traffic at the sites has quadrupled, so apparently the publicity is having the effect of drawing folks to the story. Fancy that.

# posted by bob obrien @ 2:20 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Contacted by the WSJ - "Are you Keyser Soze???"
The following is an email exchange that took place on the morning of May 4, from a reporter at the WSJ who is reportedly (no pun intended) doing a piece on "Who's Bob O'Brien" - per a source close to the Journal. In that piece, I have been told that this former TSCM reporter is attempting to connect me with the company through some byzantine twisting and turning. That's kind of hard, given that I have no contact with the management of the company, am not involved as webmaster of the website any more, am not compensated by the company, etc. etc. etc. - Oh, and did I mention that they don't know who I am? That means they are guessing, which is typically a bad way to go about doing things. Whatever. This does make for better entertainment than anything else I know, that is for sure. Here is the email exchange thusfar, and I will update it as we go:

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I am a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and was hoping to interview Bob O’Brien. I have seen Bob O’Brien’s posts about me and want to assure you that The Wall Street Journal and I are interested in accurately reflecting Bob O'Brien's position.

Perhaps we could arrange to meet over a meal or drink together. If that proves impossible, then I would like to speak with Bob O'Brien by phone. Please call me back at your earliest convenience at 212-416-XXXX.

Thank you and regards,
Jesse Eisinger

Jesse Eisinger
Long & Short columnist
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
212-416-XXXX
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To Jesse:

Hello Jesse. I have a policy of only conducting interviews with the press via email, due to unfortunate instances wherein information got misconstrued or was inaccurately portrayed. Due to the large number of folks who seem preternaturally interested in my true identity, and given the very legitimate concerns over my safety, I don't discuss that. Anything else is fair game, as long as it doesn't relate to my ID. If you are interested in doing a legitimate piece, bring it on. If this is a thinly veiled attempt to do the work of the folks who have been trying to identify me for the last year or so, not interested.

You should be aware that I publish all email exchanges with reporters, in the interests of keeping everyone honest. So anything relating to nfi-info.net or ncans.net or naked short selling or the systemic problems in the market or nfi's business model or sector are fair game.

I heard from someone out your way that what you are writing is some sort of six degrees of separation piece wherein you try to get me connected, albeit tentatively, to the company. Let me start off by conveying that you are off base, if that is a correct description of your piece. I am a private investor, I have no affiliation with the company, I receive no support from them, no pay, no "secret" or proprietary information, not even encouragement, truth be told. The company is on the record saying as much, and I am saying it to you. So that dog won't hunt. I am frankly astonished that the "Who's Bob O'Brien" thing has gotten such visibility - I suspect that it is a function of a media that can't conceive of shareholders actually being articulate and pro-active enough to fight back against what they believe is illegal manipulation - a great story, incidentally, and one which your paper has been eerily silent in presenting.

The nfi-info.net is a separate, shareholder created and operated website that contains only public information, most of it not created by me. I have no affiliation with the site anymore, and there are other webmasters drawn from the Yahoo boards who now are chartered with the operations, such as they are, of the site. Same goes for NCANS.net. I started both, and have now handed both over to the folks that have the time and knowledge to support the endeavor from a technical side.

My blog is my bully pulpit, and I still operate that, as it doesn't require a lot of block and tackling to maintain.

What is the topic of your piece, and how can I help you?

AKA Bob
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To be continued, I'm sure...

# posted by bob obrien @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

(From Sanity Check-The Blog: http://bobosrevenge.blogspot.com/ )
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