Friday, September 13, 2002

Everytime the hullabaloo about journalism vs. webloggers surfaces I think of Michael Lewis' book (Next:  The Future Just Happened) and Jonathan Lebed.  Jonathan was a kid that used his access to information networks to play the market by Wall Street's rules.  He analyzed stocks, took a position in those stocks, and published his analysis with enthusiasm on message boards and on his personal website.  He made nearly a million $$ doing this. The SEC was mortified that an individual dare play Wall Street's game.  So they attempted to shut him down -- lean on him.  He wasn't impressed.  He had done his homework on every stock he talked about.  In fact, the SECs own rules now dictate that every bit of corporate communication on earnings etc., must be made available to the public at the same time it is disclosed to analysts.  So, it was almost impossible for them to claim that if an individual like Lebed understands how to do financial analysis, he couldn't do it based on publicly accessible data.  In other words: the insiders on the street don't have any real legal advantage over individuals when doing stock analysis.  Of course, the SEC didn't like this at all.  People like Blodget and Grubman who do this type of thing were respected analysts at top Wall Street firms.  How dare a kid attempt to do what they do!   In the end, he gave them back about 1/3 of the million $$ he made to get them to drop the case.    Think of all the professions that make money via the mystique of access to privileged information.  What happens when the walls and barriers to that information fall?  What happens when individuals can publish what they find, with analysis, to a global audience?  What if people find this low cost advice and informaiton actually is good or at least 90% of what they need (or in Lebed's case it was actually 90% as bad as Grubman's and Blodget's but on a much smaller scale)?  [John Robb's Radio Weblog] Here's another example of why the SEC whould be abolished. comment () trackback ()  10:53:28 PM     Lance asks why there is no debate on war in Iraq in the US. Good question. I'll do my part. I'm in the US. I am against the US going to war with Iraq. Saddam has had chemical and biological weapons for a long time. Nothing new there. The US apparently doesn't believe he has nuclear weapons, but even if he does, or if he gets them, he's about as likely to use them as India and Pakistan were in their war earlier this year. In the end the same balance that applied betw the US and the Soviet Union and China in previous decades applies in Central Asia. Nuclear weapons are not tactical devices, they are strategic. They are only useful as potential weapons. They say Saddam is a madman. I don't think he's so crazy as to use nuclear weapons. My hope is that this war talk is just posturing to get the inspectors back in, which of course would be a good thing.  [Scripting News] Wow, so many mistaken ideas in one paragraph. I'll see if I can address them all. First, both Dave and the person he refers to seem to think there's no debate on war with Iraq here. This is ridiculous, as Dave himself has demonstrated by offering his opinion. People without web access can simply pick up a copy of the Los Angeles Times or some other newpaper for plenty of debate. Pakistan very likely would have used nuclear weapons on India if the skirmishing had turned into a full-scale war, because they wouldn't have stood a chance against India otherwise. No doubt this influenced the Indians' decision to let Pakistan off the hook. Some nuclear weapons are tactical devices--both the US and the Soviet Union once had quite a few tactical nukes. However, I doubt Iraq would build such devices instead of larger nukes, and even if they did it would make more sense to use them as strategic weapons. Using nuclear weapons isn't automatically crazy. They're just big bombs, and like any other bomb they can be used for a variety of reasons. The most obvious thing to do if Iraq had nuclear bombs would be for Saddam to say, "leave me alone or I'll nuke you." In fact, he'd be crazy not to. Getting inspectors back into Iraq is certainly not a good thing. Using the UN to stomp on another country's sovereignty sets a dangerous precedent which may be extended to the US. With their "International Criminal Court," the Tranzis have already tried in fact. We don't have any more justification for "inspecting" Saddam's country then we do for invading it. comment () trackback ()  10:40:45 PM     Pilots charged over 'friendly fire' deaths. Two US F-16 pilots are accused of manslaughter for mistakenly killing four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. [BBC News | Front Page] This is a pretty blatant political prosecution. Friendly fire casualties happen during war. It's too bad when it happens, and everyone tries to avoid it, but wars are simply not safe for the participants. Prosecuting military personnel for an honest mistake hurts the military's ability to function. comment () trackback ()  10:10:02 PM

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 2/14/2006; 6:52:13 PM.

Email