Glenn H. Hutchins is a member of the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is chairman of North Island and a co-founder of Silver Lake. He is a director of AT&T and of Virtu Financial, co-chairman of the Brookings Institution and CARE, and the Obama Foundation. He is also a member of the Investment Board of Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation. Previously, Hutchins served President Clinton in both the transition and the White House as a special advisor on economic and health-care policy. He was also previously chairman of the board of SunGard Data Systems, Inc. and Instinet, Inc. and a director of Nasdaq, Inc. He was also a director of Harvard Management Company and co-chairman of Harvard University’s capital campaign. Hutchins holds an A.B. from Harvard College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Article: Collusion with Trump over Russia inquiry ‘did not happen’, says Raab
Article - Media, PublicationsCollusion with Trump over Russia inquiry ‘did not happen’, says Raab
Patrick Wintour, 02 October 2019
No member of the British government, including the prime minister, would ever collude with Donald Trump to try to discredit the work of intelligence agencies uncovering Russian interference in the 2016 US election, the UK foreign secretary said.
Dominic Raab told the Commons that “any such collusion is entirely unacceptable, would never happen, and did not happen”.
The foreign secretary refused to say at prime minister’s questions whether Boris Johnson, or his predecessor, Theresa May, had spoken to the US president about any request to cooperate with the inquiry he had ordered into how the US intelligence agencies handled claims that Russia colluded with the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.
The collusion claim led to the lengthy report by Robert Mueller, which showed that Russia was attempting to swing the presidential election in favour of Trump but did not say whether there had been collusion between Russia and Trump.
Raab was asked whether, as reported in the Times, Trump had personally contacted Johnson to ask him to cooperate with the US inquiry.
The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw implied that the purpose of any Trump request might be “to undermine or smear British intelligence services, as well as damage cooperation with their US colleagues”.
Raab, deputising for Johnson at prime minister’s questions, said: “Neither the prime minister or, as then, the foreign secretary, would collude in the way that he described. That is entirely unacceptable and would never happen and did not happen.”
It is noticeable that the British government has been less willing than either the Australian or Italian governments to give details of help given to Trump’s inquiry into the role of the US intelligence services.
Article: Ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne sells stock, doubles down on crypto
Article - Media, PublicationsEx-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne sells stock, doubles down on crypto
Leo Jakobson, 20 September 2019
Overstock.com’s founder Patrick Byrne ended his connection with the online retailer he built into a giant in much the same way as he ended his tenure as its CEO a month ago: bizarrely.
Since 2014, Byrne poured more than $200 million of Overstock.com’s resources into a venture capital arm, Medici Ventures, with the goal of turning the online retailer into a blockchain powerhouse, Forbes estimates.
Ten days before he stepped down on August 22, Byrne had forced his PR team to post a release on the company’s investor relations page reading, “Overstock.com CEO Comments on Deep State, Withholds Further Comment.” It delved vaguely into the Hillary Clinton/Russia investigation, President Donald Trump, and Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, as well as a “senior military officer,” and “the Men in Black.” Lurking unmentioned in the background was his affair with a jailed Russian agent. Continue reading “Article: Ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne sells stock, doubles down on crypto”
Article: Remarkable Admission from Overstock.com CEO
Article - Media, PublicationsRemarkable Admission from Overstock.com CEO
Kathleen Mary Willis, 23 August 2019
Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) CEO Patrick M. Byrne has released the following statement:
“Sara Carter has published two articles relating the following claims of mine:
Starting in 2015 I (operating under the belief that I was helping legitimate law-enforcement efforts) assisted in what are now known as the ‘Clinton Investigation’ and the ‘Russian Investigation’ (in fact, I am the notorious ‘missing Chapter 1’ of the Russian investigation). It was the third time in my life I helped the Men in Black: the first was when my friend Brian Williams was murdered, and the second was when I helped the M.I.B. shake up Wall Street a decade ago. Unfortunately, this third time turned out to be less about law enforcement and more about political espionage conducted against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (and to a lesser degree, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz). Continue reading “Article: Remarkable Admission from Overstock.com CEO”
Article: Trump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime
Article - Media, PublicationsTrump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime
Some of President Trump’s favorite targets in the Russia probe have spent their careers in the Justice Department and the FBI investigating organized crime and money laundering, particularly as they pertain to Russia.
Bruce Ohr. Lisa Page. Andrew Weissmann. Andrew McCabe. President Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked these FBI and Justice Department officials as dishonest “Democrats” engaged in a partisan “witch hunt” led by the special counsel determined to tie his campaign to Russia.
Article: WSJ editorial board calls for Mueller’s resignation and accuses Clinton campaign and DNC of collusion
Article - Media, PublicationsSonam Sheth , 29 October 2017
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board called this week for a full Russia investigation — not into President Donald Trump’s campaign, but into the Democratic Party, the FBI, and the special counsel Robert Mueller. Continue reading “Article: WSJ editorial board calls for Mueller’s resignation and accuses Clinton campaign and DNC of collusion”
Article: Naked Gold Shorts: The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation
Article - MediaNaked Gold Shorts: The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation
Commodity Trade Mantra, 20 January 2014
The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.
Article: Wall Street’s Big Win
Article - MediaMatt Taibbi
Rolling Stone, 4 August 2010
Cue the credits: the era of financial thuggery is officially over. Three hellish years of panic, all done and gone – the mass bankruptcies, midnight bailouts, shotgun mergers of dying megabanks, high-stakes SEC investigations, all capped by a legislative orgy in which industry lobbyists hurled more than $600 million at Congress. It all supposedly came to an end one Wednesday morning a few weeks back, when President Obama, flanked by hundreds of party flacks and congressional bigwigs, stepped up to the lectern at an extravagant ceremony to sign into law his sweeping new bill to clean up Wall Street.
Article: Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and Naked Short Selling
Article - MediaBernard Madoff, the Mafia, and Naked Short Selling
Mark Mitchell
DeepCapture, 19 January 2009
Bernard L. Madoff was once the chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He was one of the most important market makers on Wall Street. And he managed what was, by some estimates, the largest hedge fund on the planet.
Yes, Bernard Madoff was an impressive man. That much was clear even before we learned that his $50 billion Ponzi scheme may have been orchestrated in cahoots with the most powerful, sophisticated, and indiscriminately murderous organized crime syndicate the world has ever known.
Article: Calling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis
Article - MediaCalling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis
Eric D. Hovde
Washington Post via Wayback, 21 September 2008
Looking for someone to blame for the shambles in U.S. financial markets? As someone who owns both an investment bank and commercial banks, and also runs a hedge fund, I have sat front and center and watched as this mess unfolded. And in my view, there’s no need to look beyond Wall Street — and the halls of power in Washington. The former has created the nightmare by chasing obscene profits, and the latter have allowed it to spread by not practicing the oversight that is the federal government’s responsibility.
Article: New SEC Rules Target ‘Naked’ Short-Selling
Article - MediaNew SEC Rules Target ‘Naked’ Short-Selling
Marcy Gordon
Associated Press, 18 September 2008
Federal regulators yesterday took measures aimed at reining in aggressive forms of short-selling that were blamed in part for the demise of Lehman Brothers and that some feared could be used against other vulnerable companies in a turbulent market.
The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules it said would provide permanent protections against abusive “naked” short-selling. Unlike the SEC’s temporary emergency ban this summer covering naked short-selling in the stocks of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 17 large investment banks, the new rules apply to trading in the broader market.
Paper: The Deep Capture Story by Mark Mitchell
PaperThe Story of Deep Capture
By Mark Mitchell, with reporting by the Deep Capture Team
The Columbia School of Journalism is our nation’s finest. They grant the Pulitzer Prize, and their journal, The Columbia Journalism Review, is the profession’s gold standard. CJR reporters are high priests of a decaying temple, tending a flame in a land going dark. In 2006 a CJR editor (a seasoned journalist formerly with Time magazine in Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, and The Far Eastern Economic Review) called me to discuss suspicions he was forming about the US financial media. I gave him leads but warned, “Chasing this will take you down a rabbit hole with no bottom.” For months he pursued his story against pressure and threats he once described as, “something out of a Hollywood B movie, but unlike the movies, the evil corporations fighting the journalist are not thugs burying toxic waste, they are Wall Street and the financial media itself.” His exposé reveals a circle of corruption enclosing venerable Wall Street banks, shady offshore financiers, and suspiciously compliant reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNBC, and The New York Times. If you ever wonder how reporters react when a journalist investigates them (answer: like white-collar crooks they dodge interviews, lie, and hide behind lawyers), or if financial corruption interests you, then this is for you. It makes Grisham read like a book of bedtime stories, and exposes a scandal that may make Enron look like an afternoon tea.
Introduction By Patrick M. Byrne, Deep Capture Reporter
PDF (69 Pages): Deep Capture Story
Article: Lawsuits Accuse “Prime Brokers” of Securities Fraud
Article - MediaLawsuits Accuse “Prime Brokers” of Securities Fraud
Wayne Jett
San Gabriel Valley Tribune cited by RGM Communications via Wayback, 19 July 2006
Two class-action lawsuits filed in Manhattan federal court in April allege fraud by the world’s largest “prime brokers” in securities lending practices.
Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Banc of America Securities, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, UBS Financial and Bank of New York allegedly charge high fees to lend securities for short selling, but fail to deliver the securities sold short by hedge funds.
Article: ‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle
Uncategorized‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle
Companies on the defensive seize upon an aggressive form of shorting
Alistair Barr
MarketWatch, 14 June 2006
By one contentious estimate, it’s a big problem plaguing more than 10% of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. An NYSE probe into whether naked shorting was used to force down shares of Vonage Holdings Corp. VG, +3.53% lower during the Internet phone company’s May initial public offering has added fuel to the fire. See full story.
Continue reading “Article: ‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle”
Article: Short-Sellers Are Burned by Novastar
Article - MediaShort-Sellers Are Burned by Novastar
Roddy Boyd
New York Post, 16 April 2006
One Midwestern financial company, long a target of short-sellers, has deployed an infrequently used tactic to inflict pain on its naysayers: Its management has put in place a strategy that consistently makes money.
The stock of Novastar Financial, a Kansas City, Mo.-based home-equity real estate investment trust, has been a battleground between long-term holders in love with its juicy dividends and short-sellers who suspect that the company has massive default risk with those loans.
