Ask yourself this question: when you buy or sell shares of stock, who is the counter party? Can anyone identify anyone who sold them shares or bought shares from them in any publicly traded company? Anyone?
A question is being asked by some: ” was someone doing Bush a favor by buying his stock?” Well, we have the testimony of the broker who solicited Bush’s sale. He was trying to fill an order for an institution and approached members of the board. Other members who he approached first did not want to sell. Bush did, but first wanted to check to see if he could legally sell. He could and he did. If someone was trying to do Bush a favor, why approach other board members first? And what was the favor the buyer did for Bush? Did Bush get a better price than the market price? Has anyone claimed this?
The comment that Harkin was a “thinly traded stock” is very telling. A thinly traded stock will move up or down in large percentage increments if large blocks are eithr being bought or sold. That is why a thinly traded stock is volatile and can move 25% per day easily depending on whether there are more buyers than sellers. It also explains why the institution looking to buy the shares was looking for a large block that could be traded at the market, rather than putting in market orders for several hundred thousand shares and having its own demand pump up the price artificially - and temporarily.
Of course, after the criminal conspiracy that was the Clinton administration has made everyone more than a little suspicious about skullduggery in high places. But that is no reason for bizarre conspiracy theories or references to vague “good old boy networks” that derive from watching re-runs of “Dallas.” There are “good old boy” networks, but they are the kind that operated out of the hinterlands of Arkansas and Louisiana (and parts of New York). And crossing them can get you dead.
As this thread goes on I see that Bush is in cahoots with drug smugglers, money launderers, lawyers (the scum), and people who toppled the Australian government. That kind of over-the-top hysteria really is not persuasive unless you, too, have been abducted by space aliens for weird sexual experiments. We even have posters who have an in with the government of Bahrein and can tell us, from personal knowledge why that government gives development contracts to one company instead of another. Golly, I wish I had those connections, life would be simpler.
Change Obviously to probably...or come up with some other likely explanation given that... a)Harken was a small, not very successful company...b)Amoco was the opposite...c)Knoweledgeable people were extremely surprised at the outcome and said so.
Whenever management walks away with a fortune while stockholders, creditors, and employees lose jobs, pensions, and value one can expect questions about legitimacy and legality. Also, I live in old mining country. Out here it is common knowledge that, often as not, what was being mined was investors. I'm sure nothing has changed.
So the question is was Bush's stock sale legitimate...or did he benefit from insider info...or did some angel buy him out of a bad situation. Analysis of the sale will, hopefully, provide an answer.
The Broker knew who it was that "wanted to buy a block of shares"
"He was trying to fill an order for an institution and approached members of the board." ------
And to THIS DAY that "Institution" needs to remain anonymous? That Institution went SEEKING Harken shares out of the Clear Blue whatever, had to have a Large Block of Shares, and was just playing a Hunch? Doesn't fit for me!
"There are “good old boy” networks, but they are the kind that operated out of the hinterlands of Arkansas and Louisiana (and parts of New York). And crossing them can get you dead."-------
And Texas is exempt from that "curiosity", huh?
"I absolutely had no idea and would not have sold it had I known,"
George W. Bush - The News during his 1994 campaign for governor. - Source: The Dallas Morning News - By Mark Curriden - September 7, 2000 - Article: Records Show What Bush Knew Before Stock Sale.
Harken Papers Offer Details on Bush Knowledge
"The SEC's general counsel at the time was James R. Doty, who represented Bush in his purchase of the Texas Rangers. Doty recused himself. Bush was represented in the SEC case by Jordan, who had been law partners with Doty and now is Bush's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The SEC chairman was Richard C. Breeden, nominated by Bush's father."
Some links and reading material courtesy of Uncle Bill on another thread.
"Bush, who sat on Harken's audit committee, has said he did not know about the extent of the losses later reported for the quarter in which he sold the stock. If he had, he could have been subject to charges that he profited from insider information. "I absolutely had no idea and would not have sold had I known," he told the Dallas Morning News in 1994."
Let's see, Bush has an MBA, I heard.
Wendy Gramm of ENRON Fame ---
"Wendy Gramm of Washington, D.C. received her bachelor of arts degree from Wellesley College in 1966 and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1971.
Dr. Gramm is a Distinguished Senior Fellow and Director of the Regulatory Studies Program of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia.
Before joining the Mercatus Center, Gramm served as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988-1993. She was administrator for Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget from 1985-1988, the Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief and Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Economics. Dr. Gramm was on the research staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses. She started her economics career at Texas A&M University, where she taught economics for over eight years. Dr. Gramm has an extensive publication record including articles in the American Economic Review and the Journal of Law and Economics.
An economist, Dr. Gramm serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Federation of Independent Business' Legal Foundation and is a member of the boards of Enron, Invesco Funds, Longitude, State Farm Insurance Companies and Independent Women's Forum. She has received several awards, including Financial Executive of the Year from the Financial Management Association."
Maybe she and jr. just need to get a little more education in money matters, huh? Or maybe they should SUE for complete refunds on the cost of all the education they DID get!
Or maybe this IS what they learned.