lessthaniv

Interesting Article about Obama's campaign promises vs the U.S. need for Canadian Oil Imports. http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=8daa1fae-0944-44f1-a0cd-c08dcd1ee218 Obama strategy puts heat on oilsands Presidential hopeful could target Alberta Sheldon Alberts, with files from Geoffrey Scotton, Colette Derworiz and Kim Guttormson, Calgary Herald Canwest News Service Wednesday, June 25, 2008 CREDIT: Laura Rauch, Getty Images The energy policies of Barack Obama, left, could pose a big challenge to Canada's energy industry. Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president -- and one of his first targets might well be Alberta's oilsands. A senior adviser to Obama's campaign told reporters it's an "open question" whether oil produced from northern Alberta's oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate's plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels. "If it turns out that those technologies don't advance . . . and the only way to produce those resources would be at a significant penalty to climate change, then we don't believe that those resources are going to be part of the long term, are going to play a growing role in the long-term future," said Jason Grumet, Obama's senior energy adviser. Canada's oil industry was already targeted this week at a convention of big-city U.S. mayors who singled out Alberta's oilsands in a resolution calling for national guidelines to track the impact of different types of fossil fuels. The American mayors' attack drew a sharp response from Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, who questioned the logic of attacking North American energy sources like the Alberta oilsands when the United States imports a great deal of its oil from much farther away. "How are you going to convince me that the carbon footprint is less by developing the oil in Iraq . . . and shipping it to the coast and refining it there?" he said. Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier blasted his U.S. counterparts, saying they need to visit Alberta in person to "get the facts on oilsands production." "This resolution suggests a lack of understanding," he said, adding the U.S. mayors should focus more on promoting energy efficiency, conservation and the adoption of green technologies. "America will need Alberta's oil; there is no question about it," Bronconnier said. The remarks from Obama's adviser amount to a shot across the bow of Alberta's oilsands industry, which is planning to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels over the next decade. The industry has come under attack from U.S. environmentalists because the production of its heavy oil emits an estimated three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. "I don't think (Obama's) adviser is aware of the laws for climate change reductions that are mandated in Canada right now," said Greg Stringham, of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "Its all mixed together, so you can't separate the green molecules from the yellow molecules." About 18 per cent of the oil imported into the United States comes from Canada; however, it is blended from many sources before arriving south of the border. Stringham said ensuring Obama and his supporters understand the environmental improvements that have been made to Canada's oilsands production processes is critical. "Once they understand . . . I think there is room for dialogue for that because what we are doing up here is very close to what he is proposing down there. Once that is clarified, I don't think there will much of an issue." Obama has cast himself as a champion of green energy during his White House campaign, proposing a national low-carbon fuel standard that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 180 million tonnes by 2020. He has promised to invest $150 billion in alternative energy, and to reduce American dependence on foreign oil by 35 per cent by 2030. "The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless," Obama said Tuesday in Las Vegas. Christopher Sands, a Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, said Obama's energy policy could pose as big a challenge to the Canadian economy as would his vow to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. "What he wants to do, clearly, is to eliminate oil sources like the oilsands. He is very aware of them and the process that's generating them," Sands said. "That is a threat to the oilsands and (Canada) has to take this much more seriously." Canada is the largest supplier of oil and gas to the U.S. and the greater awareness of Canada's importance as a U.S. energy supplier has brought added scrutiny and criticism. "I don't think Canadians realize what's at stake in this election is a real fight," Sands said. In addition to Obama's emphasis on lower-carbon fuels, "you have a Congress champing at the bit to interfere with the glide path we all thought we are on" with Canadian oil exports to the United States. Obama is committed to supporting energy sources that help slow climate change -- and he will reward industries that meet tough new greenhouse gas standards, Grumet said. "It's a meritocracy. We are going to support resources that diversify petroleum supplies, that bring more production to this hemisphere, and that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "And I think it's an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests." Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, has vowed to support alternative energy and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. McCain has placed more emphasis, however, on the need to lower American reliance on oil from the Middle East and countries like Nigeria and Venezuela. © The Calgary Herald 2008

Check out Mark's new piece and in praticular pay attention to the email exchanges as it pertains to FFH. WOW! http://www.deepcapture.com/email-exposes-short-seller-plot-to-destroy-a-public-company/ Email Exposes Short Seller Plot to Destroy a Public Company February 17th, 2009 by Mark Mitchell This is Part 3 of an ongoing series. Read Part 1 Read Part 2 A few years ago, a clique of influential journalists went to extraordinary lengths to cover up the problem of illegal short selling. In the face of indisputable data and evidence, the journalists insisted, over and over, that “naked” short selling (hedge funds manipulating stock prices by flooding the market with phantom stock) rarely occurred. And they said short sellers (who profit from falling stock prices) don’t set out to destroy public companies. Moreover, if a person were to criticize illegal short selling, the reporters would smear that person’s reputation with a savagery that was almost without parallel in contemporary journalism. At the time, these journalists were working at major news organizations like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CNBC, but most shared a common history: they had been founding editors or top employees of TheStreet.com, a financial news website. The few who had not worked for TheStreet.com were close colleagues of TheStreet.com’s owner, Jim Cramer, who is best known as the eccentric host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” program. Having studied more than 1,000 stories by these journalists, I can assure the reader that nearly every one of them was sourced from a tight network of hedge fund managers, and that a great many of the stories were false or misleading. Moreover, most of the people in this network (including Jim Cramer himself) are tied in important ways to two famous criminals from the 1980s – Ivan Boesky and “junk bond king” Michael Milken. And though I realize that is hard for some people to absorb this, I will continue to provide evidence that a surprising number of the “prominent investors” in this network have had dealings with associates of organized crime – the Mafia. * * * * * * * * Last spring, we published “The Story of Deep Capture,” which sought to explain the origins of the Deep Capture website (mission: “to bypass the ‘captured’ institutions mediating our nation’s discourse”) by way of exposing the machinations of the Cramer clique of journalists and their short selling sources. One day after we published our story, Cramer had some kind of awakening. Whereas he had previously sought to whitewash short seller crimes, he now suddenly repeated our assertion that illegal short selling was a big problem – the same problem that precipitated the great stock market crash of 1929. A few months later, abusive short selling was implicated by U.S. Senators, CEOs of major banks, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, respected academics, prominent law firms, current and past chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in the near total collapse of our financial system. Nowadays, Cramer is even more adamant. He says he knows a lot of short sellers. He says that short sellers are destroying public companies. He says they crushed the markets and they’re going to crush America too. These short sellers, Cramer hollers, are downright “diabolical.” * * * * * * * * If you have not done so, please read Deep Capture reporter Patrick Byrne’s primer on naked short selling. Please read “The Story of Deep Capture.” Think about what Cramer has said. And then have a look at the following email. = = = = =Begin Message= = = = = Message # : 727 Message Sent: 02/22/2006 08:57:48 From: AHELLER3@bloomberg.net|ANDY HELLER|EXIS CAPITAL MANAGEM To: JONKALIKOW@bloomberg.net|JONATHAN KALIKOW|STANFIELD CAPITAL Subject: CNBC – FAIRFAX Reply: He did this one time before, and the stock went down 3 on the open, then closed up 1. the way to get this thing down is to get them where they eat, like the credit analysts and holders. we’re taking this baby down for the count. ads and I are going to toronto in 2 weeks for a group lunch. J = = = = =End Message= = = = = * * * * * * * * That email was authored by a top employee of Exis Capital, which is an offshoot of SAC Capital — said by some to be the most powerful hedge fund on Wall Street. We can’t be certain who, aside from the email’s author and “ads” (Adam D. Sender, head of Exis), attended that “group lunch.” But from other emails we know that a particular “group” of hedge fund managers did, indeed, intend to take “this baby down for the count.” The “baby” was Fairfax Financial, a major, publicly listed insurance and financial firm. The reference in the first line of the above email is to journalist Herb Greenberg, who bashed Fairfax on CNBC, apparently causing the stock to go “down 3 on the open.” Other emails in our collection (we’ll publish a couple more of them) suggest that Herb’s reporting involved nothing more than contacting the “group” to find out what he was supposed to say. * * * * * * * * Herb took Fairfax “down 3 at the open” in February 2006, right at the time that Herb, a founding editor of TheStreet.com, received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission. TheStreet.com also got a subpoena. So did Jim Cramer, the owner of TheStreet.com. Short seller David Rocker, a member of the “group” and then the largest outside shareholder of TheStreet.com, got a subpoena too. At the time, the commission had opened a formal investigation into Gradient Analytics, a financial research firm that stood accused by multiple former employees of manufacturing false “independent” research reports in cahoots with short sellers (namely, the “group”) and letting the short sellers trade ahead of the reports’ publication. The “group” – which also included “prominent investor” Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates – had a similar scam going with “independent research” firm Morgan Keegan. Deep Capture reporter Judd Bagley broke that story more than a month ago. Bloomberg News, which seems to be the only major media outfit willing to write critically about these “prominent investors,” picked the story up last week. The Wall Street Journal published a major, front-page article that exposed the dubious tactics that Jim Chanos and affiliated short sellers used to demolish public companies. But that article was published more than twenty years ago — in 1985. Since then, the Journal has not published a single negative story about Chanos and his friends. It has not published a single investigative story about abusive short selling. When David Kansas, a founding editor of TheStreet.com, was running The Wall Street Journal “Money & Investing” section, that part of the paper served as little more than a mouthpiece for Rocker, Cohen, Chanos and affiliated “prominent investors.” But last week, even The Wall Street Journal had to acknowledge that Chanos is now the target of an SEC investigation. * * * * * * * * When the SEC issued subpoenas in the Gradient investigation, one former Gradient employee provided a sworn affidavit stating that Herb Greenberg held his negative stories so that David Rocker could establish short positions that would make money when Herb’s stories caused stocks to do such things as go “down 3 at the open.” At the time, Jon Markman, a founding editor of TheStreet.com and later managing editor of MSN Money was running a hedge fund out of Gradient’s back office. Former Gradient employees said that Markman was also trading ahead of Herb’s negative stories and Gradient’s false negative information. If true, this would likely be illegal. But SEC officials say that the investigation in February 2006 was aimed at bigger prey than just Gradient and a few journalists. The commission was aware that some “prominent investors” were, in the words of our email author, taking companies “down for the count.” Good people at the SEC (the rank and file) hoped to put a stop to this. But when the subpoenas were issued, Herb, Cramer and others in their media clique went berserk. They said journalists don’t have special relationships with short sellers. They said short sellers don’t destroy companies. Cramer famously vandalized his government subpoena – live on CNBC. Under this “media” pressure, the SEC chairman announced that it would not enforce the subpoenas. Later, the SEC dropped its investigation altogether. In an interview with Bloomberg News about the decision not to enforce the subpoenas, SEC attorney Kathleen Bisaccia said this: “To have the chairman publicly slap us in the face for doing our jobs – that really crushed the spirit of a lot of people for a long time.” Indeed, former SEC officials say that this was a pivotal moment in SEC history. With morale sapped, the commission all but ceased to function. Certainly, it did not stop the short sellers who would soon begin efforts to take some of Wall Street’s biggest financial institutions “down for the count.” * * * * * * * * Herb Greenberg, the journalist who took Fairfax “down 3 at the open,” and who was alleged to have allowed at least one short seller in the “group” to trade ahead of his stories, now runs an “independent” financial research firm that advertises itself as “bridging financial journalism and forensic analysis.” We believe that Herb receives the bulk of his income from the above-mentioned “group” and affiliated “prominent investors.” * * * * * * * * From the above email it is evident that in addition to working with corrupt journalists, the “group” sought to destroy Fairfax Financial by getting “them where they eat.” That is, the hedge funds sought to “take this baby down for the count” by cutting off the company’s access to capital. Sometimes “prominent investors” will merely dish dirt to a company’s lenders. Other times, the schemes are more complicated, with investors in their network actually financing the company. This gives them access to inside information and (in the case of convertible debentures) to stock that can be lent to affiliated short sellers. In other cases, “prominent investors” will buy the company’s debt, package it into “collateralized debt obligations” (financial weapons of mass destruction that were pioneered by Michael Milken’s team at Drexel Burnham Lambert), and then trade it in such a way as to make it seem as if the company is in trouble. When the time is right, the “prominent investors” fob off the debt to some witless or compliant pension fund. Then they tell people that they’re no longer financing the company – the company’s been “cut off.” <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> Meanwhile, the company will be subjected to unbridled “naked” short selling – hedge funds illegally selling stock that they do not actually possess (phantom stock) to manipulate down the share price. (By way of example: when the above email was written, SEC data showed that millions of phantom Fairfax shares had been “failing to deliver” on a daily basis). What usually happens is that legitimate lenders see the plummeting stock price. They see a supposed “financial partner” yanking credit. They see the negative media. They see the debt trading at disturbing prices. They have short sellers feeding them horrible news about the company. The legitimate lenders know the news is false. They know the company is credit worthy. But the negativity itself becomes a liability. The falling stock price is a liability. The legitimate lenders get worried. They raise their cost of capital, or cut if off altogether. And so the “baby” goes “down for the count.” * * * * * * * * Fairfax survived this onslaught. Other companies were not so lucky. Last year, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and dozens of other companies all went bust in a similar pattern — waves of naked short selling slightly preceding false stories planted in the media and then, suddenly, a financial “partner” cutting off a source of capital. That is, short sellers got these companies “where they eat.” Did the short sellers “cause” these companies to collapse? If a sniper shoots at a man who is swimming in a dangerous ocean current, and the man drowns, we cannot say for sure that the sniper “caused” the man’s death. But we can say that shooting at struggling swimmers is a crime. Which short sellers committed the crimes? Only the SEC and the FBI can tell us for sure. But we know which “group” attacked Fairfax Financial. We know that this same “group” and affiliated “prominent investors” attacked the big financial companies that collapsed last year. And we know that the people in this “group” are not passive investors. Rather, when they attack a “baby,” they seek to take it “down for the count.” Given that the collapse of the financial companies caused an economic catastrophe that will wipe out the jobs and savings accounts of millions of Americans, it seems that the “group” and affiliated “prominent investors” warrant further attention. * * * * * * * * One “prominent investor” is Adam Sender, proprietor of Exis Capital, the hedge fund that employs the author of the above email. As you will recall, Exis is an offshoot of SAC Capital, which is managed by Steve Cohen – described by BusinessWeek magazine as “the most powerful trader on the Street.” As I noted in my previous piece, a former Mafia soldier turned private investigator offered to have one of Sender’s business partners buried in the Nevada desert. Sender claims to have declined this offer, but an FBI recording (hear it again here) suggests that Sender paid more than $200,000 to that former Mafia soldier and that Sender intended to “fix” his business partner and somehow bring about a “doomsday.” Sender also hired a thug named Spyro Contogouris to harass and threaten executives of Fairfax Financial – part of the “group” effort to take that “baby down for the count.” In upcoming stories, I will publish some of Spyro’s shocking emails. In one, he told an FBI agent that somebody was threatening his life. He claimed that it was lawyers working for Fairfax Financial. But that claim seems somewhat absurd. Fairfax Financial is a Canadian insurance company run by a mild-mannered immigrant from India named Prem Watsa, who is known as “the Warren Buffett of Canada.” Given that Spyro wrote his email shortly before he was arrested by the FBI agent, and given that this FBI agent was investigating the “group,” it is possible that Spyro either made up the story to solicit sympathy, or the “group” was threatening Spyro’s life to prevent him from testifying. Either way, it says something about the state of the American media that this intrigue, involving a major financial firm and some of the nation’s most “prominent investors,” is not front page news. * * * * * * * * The recipient of the email promising to take Fairfax “down for the count” was Jonathan Kalikow of Stanfield Capital, a hedge fund specialized in the trading of collateralized debt obligations. Jonathan is a member of the mighty Kalikow family. The patriarch of this family is “prominent investor” Peter Kalikow, who was one of the largest financial backers of the stock manipulation firm run by Ivan Boesky, the famous criminal from the 1980s. But Peter Kalikow is perhaps best known as the former owner of The New York Post. When Kalikow owned the Post, the newspaper’s fleet of delivery trucks was handed over to members of New York’s five organized crime families. With Bonanno Mafia soldier Richard “Shellack-head” Cantarella presiding over the delivery bay, guns and drugs were loaded into the Post’s newspaper trucks and transported throughout the city. Indeed, the New York Post became one of La Cosa Nostra’s principal smuggling operations. * * * * * * * * The other members of the “group” — David Rocker, Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates, and Dan Loeb of Third Point – have been discussed at length on this website. In upcoming installments, I will tell you more about them and others in their network. They are all “prominent investors.” To be continued…

Hi Everyone, Although we are currently engulfed in a period of asset devaluation, I suspect a major repercussion of today's governmental spending will be inflation. Therefore, I am interested in learning more about asset classes that traditionally do well in an inflationary environment. In today’s market, much discussion is circling on high yield investments be it preferred shares or high yield debt. What are some ways that we can hedge the risk of inflation in order to protect the integrity of today's investment in these types securities for the future? All thoughts welcome!

It's official ... The SEC has charged Stanford and frozen the assets. This is another scam from the looks of it. Here is the link to the SEC announcement: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr20901.htm Here is a link to the Complaint: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2009/comp20901.pdf <IV

SAC & Chanos would like us to believe they did nothing to conspire with each other. However, if that's true, then I don't understand something ... If one stumbles onto a piece of information that can be turned into significant profits, Is it common practice to call up one of your largest competitors across town and tell them about it? They are going to have a hard time explaining how they didn't conspire. Time to bring out the famous chewbacca defense! http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103454 ... that still makes me laugh! <IV

more from Bloomberg today... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ajyP6jGBwJlA&refer=news Stanford Blames ‘Former Disgruntled’ Workers in Probe (Update1) Email | Print | A A A By Alison Fitzgerald Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- R. Allen Stanford, the billionaire chairman of Houston-based investment firm Stanford Group Co., blamed “former disgruntled employees” for stoking regulatory probes into his firm. Stanford Group is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because they didn’t want to put their jobs at risk. The agencies are examining the company’s sales of certificates of deposit issued by its Antigua-based affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd., and the consistent, above- average returns those investments paid, the people said. “We are all aware that former disgruntled employees have gone to the regulators questioning our work and our processes,” Stanford said yesterday in an e-mail to staff members that was obtained by Bloomberg News. “This could have compounded an otherwise routine examination.” Investigators from Finra visited six Stanford Group offices last month, downloaded information from computer hard drives and looked through files, the people said. “Regulatory officers have conveyed to us these visits are part of their routine examinations,” Stanford said in his e-mail message. He repeated that assertion in a letter to clients dated Feb. 11 and obtained by Bloomberg. “Please do not get discouraged by what you read in the press,” Allen Stanford wrote in the letter. “We are hard at work delivering on our commitment to you.” Finra has asked former employees about the bank’s stated returns on investment, the people said. ‘Decisive Steps’ The returns were between 10.3 percent and 15.1 percent every year from 1995 until last year, according to documents and annual reports on the bank’s Web site. SIB has $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients, according to the site. Deposits climbed to $7.7 billion in July, from $3 billion at the end of 2004, according to press releases and the mid-year report posted on the site. “On the issue of Stanford International Bank, I want to be very clear,” Stanford said in the e-mail. “SIB remains a strong institution, and even without the benefit of billions in U.S. taxpayers’ dollars we are taking a number of decisive steps to reinforce our financial strength. We will take the necessary actions to protect our depositors.” ‘Whatever Steps Necessary’ Stanford in his letter assured clients he will take “whatever steps necessary” to protect their deposits. “We have already added two capital infusions into the bank and are considering additional actions,” he wrote. Stanford, 58, vowed to “fight with every breath to continue to uphold our good name.” Finra spokesman Herb Perone said the agency doesn’t confirm or deny investigations. Kevin Edmundson, an SEC investigator in Ft. Worth, Texas, said, “I can’t even confirm the existence of the investigation.” The SEC issued subpoenas last July to at least two former Stanford employees. Last month, the agency questioned two former Stanford financial advisers, according to the people familiar with the situation. The SEC has stepped up probes after being accused of failing to heed warnings that Bernard Madoff’s investment returns were too good to be true. Madoff was arrested Dec. 11 after allegedly telling his sons that his business was a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. The SEC has since announced unrelated lawsuits against at least seven money managers for allegedly inflating profits or siphoning off client money. Marketing CDs Stanford Group pushed its financial advisers to steer clients’ money into the offshore CDs, paying a 1 percent bonus commission and offering prizes including trips and cash for the best producers, according to four former advisers who asked not to be identified. Marketing material for Stanford Group CDs raised red flags, said Bob Parrish, a financial planner and accountant in Longboat Key, Florida. The use of the term “CD” to describe the investment was misleading because most investors associate it with a safe, FDIC- insured instrument, Parrish said. ‘Enjoying Those Checks’ “It was a familiar term being used to describe an instrument that really would not fall within the meaning of a CD,” Parrish said in a telephone interview. He advised six clients to take their money out of the CDs, he said. An internal e-mail from 2005 obtained by Bloomberg showed Stanford urging a team of 61 Stanford Group financial advisers to bring $62.5 million in new money to the bank in one quarter. “Many of you are just now enjoying those checks from our 2nd quarter team performance of $44 MM,” the e-mail said. “I’m sure you look forward to getting another one after this quarter.” Stanford Group’s one-year, $100,000 CD paid 4.5 percent annual yield as of Nov. 28, according a posting on the Web site yesterday. A one-year, $10,000 CD purchased at JPMorgan Chase & Co. would earn 1.5 percent, according to its consumer banking Web site. SIB describes the CDs in its disclosure statement as traditional bank deposits. The bank doesn’t lend proceeds and instead invests in a mix of equities, metals, currencies and derivatives, according to its Web site and CD disclosures. To contact the reporter on this story: Alison Fitzgerald in Washington at Afitzgerald2@bloomberg.net Last Updated: February 13, 2009 08:41 EST

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2009/02/10/whats-going-on-at-stanford-international-bank Feb 10 2009 11:39AM EST What's Going On at Stanford International Bank? Ray Pellecchia and I think that if Harry Markopolos had put his theories about Bernie Madoff online, Madoff would not have been able to continue his scam much longer. Against that, a lot of people are saying that no matter how detailed Markopolos's analysis, without the backing of a large institution like the Wall Street Journal or the SEC, nothing would have happened. So it'll be interesting to see what happens now that Alex Dalmady has gone public with his suspicions about Stanford International Bank, an Antigua-based private bank with $8 billion in assets. Dalmady's report can be found here; it makes for quite a rollicking read, and if I had any money with SIB I'd be asking some pointed questions right now.

After you read the story ... make sure you listen to the FBI recording of Adam Sender (Exis Capital). Fairfax shareholder's will know this name well. Here is the link to the taped phone call. The article listed above will put this phone call in context. WOW! http://www.deepcapture.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/sender-pellicano.mp3 <iv

This is one of the most amazing reads. It's long, but worth the ride... http://www.deepcapture.com/bernard-madoff-a-threat-and-the-friends-of-michael-milken/ <IV ___________________________________________________