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ource: http://www.localgroup.net/articles/anatomy.html
Anatomy of a Political Murder
How the government destroyed Martha Stewart
By David L. Hunter
Published by Local Group
Copyright 2004
Preface
Martha Stewart periodically emails her fans to thank them for their
support. The following two exhibits contain actual email messages from
Martha Stewart.
===================================================================
Exhibit #1
From: martha@marthatalks.com
To: private@private.com
Subject: News From Martha
Date: FRI, 7 NOV 2003 11:01:53
Dear Friend,
Thank you so much for writing to me in the past. Your messages have
meant a great deal to me and I welcome your thoughts, your support and
your display of good will and friendship Through all of this, keeping
in touch with friends and supporters remains a priority that always
gives me a lift. Thank you for allowing me to do so. I hope you will
continue to do the same.
Sincerely,
Martha Stewart
===================================================================
===================================================================
Exhibit #2
From: martha@marthatalks.com
To: private@private.com
Subject: Holiday Wishes
Date: WED, 24 DEC 2003 15:18:42
Dear Friend,
During this special time of year, I am writing to you again as well as
to all those who have written to me in the past six months to extend
my deepest thanks for your support and good will, and to offer my
sincere best wishes to you and your loved ones for a warm and
wonderful holiday season. May the new year bring you peace,
happiness, and fulfillment in all your endeavors.
Sincerely,
Martha Stewart
===================================================================
Unfortunately Martha Stewart will stop sending these email messages
when she enters federal prison. What went wrong with Martha Stewart?
Why was she politically destroyed at the hands of government?
A Supreme Subversion
To answer the above questions you need to understand the subversion of
law that occurred in the United States Supreme Court. Natural law has
been evolving for the past 2500 years from ancient Greece to modern
America. However, during the early part of the twentieth century
America's federal judiciary began replacing natural rights that are
rooted in reality with legal positivism that is rooted in politicized
agendas.
Led by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the early 1900s, the Supreme
Court began abandoning natural rights as articulated in the
Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Since
that time the American legal system increasingly violated the
fourteenth amendment of the Constitution. The fourteenth amendment
protects each citizen's liberty by stating that liberty cannot be
deprived without due process of law.
The first realm of liberty that came under assault in the early 1900s
was the economic realm. Citizens gradually lost the liberty to engage
in free and voluntary trade among each other. Using the philosophy of
legal positivism, the government enacted laws that took away each
citizen's economic liberty without due process of law. This assault on
economic liberty gained momentum during the twentieth century. By the
1970s there were a plethora of liberty-restricting laws that hampered
American commerce.
It was during this era that America transformed from a constitutional
republic to a quasi-fascist state. According to Webster's dictionary,
fascism is a social organization whereby private economic enterprise
is under centralized governmental control. Starting in the early 1900s
in America, the means of production have been privately owned in name
only. The government has controlled the means of production through
minimum wage laws, price control laws, labor laws, workplace safety
laws, unemployment insurance laws, social security laws, graduated
income tax laws, antitrust laws, insider trading laws and central
banking laws.
There are several harmful consequences of fascism. One consequence is
the increased cost of production caused by government intervention.
These increased production costs are transferred to consumers in the
form of higher retail prices. Plus the combination of federal, state
and local taxes require Americans to pay 50% of their income to the
government. Higher retail prices combined with decreased disposable
income results in a lower standard of living for citizens. Also
fascism deprives citizens of their natural right to engage in
voluntary trade among each other.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that
"mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed." This explains why most people tolerate losses of liberty
and a declining standard of living caused by an overreaching
government.
Upon replacing natural law jurisprudence with legal positivism in the
Supreme Court, the government was able to override its constitutional
limitations. During and after that transitional period the government
was able to undercut natural rights with impunity. The government
wielded non-objective laws to prosecute numerous competitive
businesses. For example, the government used non-objective antitrust
laws to prosecute Standard Oil, US Steel, ALCOA, Kodak, GM, Ford, GE,
DuPont, IBM, AT&T, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Visa, MasterCard and several
other businesses.
None of these businesses violated any natural laws or anyone's
individual rights. However each business innovated to increase
production and decrease prices, which put pressure on competitors.
With its fascist power, the government urged uncompetitive losers to
attack the innovative winners using non-objective antitrust laws. This
resulted in the penalizing of successful innovators while financially
rewarding the stagnant losers.
Being freed from natural law jurisprudence enabled the government to
go after not only competitive businesses but also competitive
individuals. Using non-objective laws such as tax laws and insider
trading laws, the government prosecuted competitive individuals
including Martha Stewart, Sam Waksal, Reuben Sturman, Leona Helmsley,
Michael Milken, Irwin Schiff, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine and Stew
Leonard.
The US tax code consists of 20,000 pages of non-objective rules,
regulations and laws. That tax code is a Hegelian nightmare of
contradictions that baffle even tax professionals. Yet Beardsley Ruml,
who was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said to the
American Bar Association in 1945 that taxes as a means of revenue are
obsolete. Ruml said taxes should be used as means of controlling
citizens, society a
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On 19 Mar 2004 17:15:36 -0800, local_group@usa.com (Hunter) wrote:
The real crime consisted of government
interference on the part of the Food and Drug Administration, which
rejected ImClone's cancer-curing drug Erbitux.
######################
According to various web sites Erbitux was approved.
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On 19 Mar 2004 17:15:36 -0800, local_group@usa.com (Hunter) wrote:
######################
According to various web sites Erbitux was approved.
no one is above the law or the people gather above the law and convict
paralegally and violently
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On 19 Mar 2004 17:15:36 -0800, local_group@usa.com (Hunter) wrote:
######################
According to various web sites Erbitux was approved.
Not so. The crime was risking a billion to gain a penny. The
first crime was merely a venal sin. Things went downhill from there.
It started with a thought..Committed when thinking stopped. The
intent to cheat was in the thinking. This crime pales, when you
consider the offences against the nation by the cabal.
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local_group@usa.com (Hunter) wrote in message news:<c8a3d001.0403191715.2f667353@posting.google.com>...
Being freed from natural law jurisprudence enabled the government to
go after not only competitive businesses but also competitive
individuals. Using non-objective laws such as tax laws and insider
trading laws, the government prosecuted competitive individuals
including Martha Stewart, Sam Waksal, Reuben Sturman, Leona Helmsley,
Michael Milken, Irwin Schiff, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine and Stew
Leonard.
Note: Ivan Boesky has been removed from the revised version of this
publication and other Local Group publications because he committed
objective crimes (he broke into people's offices and stole
confidential information).
The revised version of this publication will be mailed to select US
federal judges next week beginning with Judge Cedarbaum. Comments,
suggestions or criticisms can be sent to local_group@usa.com prior to
mailing this information to US federal judges.
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donoli <donoli@queyosepa.net> wrote in message news:<kjsl609mbsjvsmd6hdna72cuibh1k2hc2f@4ax.com>...
The real crime consisted of government
interference on the part of the Food and Drug Administration, which
rejected ImClone's cancer-curing drug Erbitux.
######################
According to various web sites Erbitux was approved.
The FDA originally rejected Erbitux years ago; this prompted Sam
Waksal and Martha Stewart to sell their shares of ImClone stock in
2001. Waksal was prosecuted for this and sent to prison. Later the FDA
realized it erred; Erbitux does in fact work as it is supposed to. So
the FDA recently approved Erbitux but Sam Waksal remains behind bars
and Martha Stewart probably will join him for the error of the FDA.
A class-action lawsuit possibly could be made against the FDA for
murdering innocent cancer patients by forcibly withholding a valid
cancer cure from patients for several years. But right now it is
imperative to pardon Mr. Waksal and Ms. Stewart.
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In article <c8a3d001.0403312113.5bd0892a@posting.google.com>,
Hunter <local_group@usa.com> wrote:
The FDA originally rejected Erbitux years ago; this prompted Sam
Waksal and Martha Stewart to sell their shares of ImClone stock in
2001.
Before the rejection became public? That's trading on material
non-public information, or Insider Trading. It's illegal.
It doesn't matter whether the FDA was right or not, what matters is
that (1) information about the FDA's decision had the power to move
the stock price, and (2) people who had that information prior to it
becoming public traded based on that information.
Waksal was prosecuted for this and sent to prison. Later the FDA
realized it erred; Erbitux does in fact work as it is supposed to. So
the FDA recently approved Erbitux but Sam Waksal remains behind bars
and Martha Stewart probably will join him for the error of the FDA.
If the FDA had originally approved it and they'd bought more before
that came out, they'd still have committed crimes.
A class-action lawsuit possibly could be made against the FDA for
murdering innocent cancer patients by forcibly withholding a valid
cancer cure from patients for several years.
You need the government's permission to sue it.
But right now it is
imperative to pardon Mr. Waksal and Ms. Stewart.
They did commit the crimes, didn't they?
Seth
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sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote in message news:<c4is4h$7sb$1@panix5.panix.com>...
The FDA originally rejected Erbitux years ago; this prompted Sam
Waksal and Martha Stewart to sell their shares of ImClone stock in
2001.
Before the rejection became public? That's trading on material
non-public information, or Insider Trading. It's illegal.
It doesn't matter whether the FDA was right or not, what matters is
that (1) information about the FDA's decision had the power to move
the stock price, and (2) people who had that information prior to it
becoming public traded based on that information.
Your analysis underscores my original point: insider trading laws are
non-objective. How can information such as the FDA's rejection of
Erbitux become public so that everyone has equal access to it before
anyone else? What about the newspaper dealers who get the newspaper
first? What about the journalists who write about this information for
newspapers? What about reporters who receive phone calls about the
FDA's rejection so they can write the story? What about bureaucrats in
the FDA and those bureaucrats' relatives who hear of the rejection?
What about TV journalists who prepare the story? What about radio
commentators who hear about this information before other people? You
literally would have to socialize all knowledge and information to
ensure that everyone gets the same information at the same time to
prevent insider trading.
My original point is that insider trading laws are philosophically
untenable. Knowledge and information do not obey manmade laws. Someone
like Ivan Boesky who broke into private offices, stole confidential
information and used it to trade securities clearly violated natural
law. He committed objective crimes of (1) burglary, (2) theft and (3)
fraud. He initiated physical force to steal information and used that
stolen information to defraud the stock market.
By contrast Martha Stewart received a phone call from her stockbroker
who recommended that she sell her shares of ImClone stock. She agreed.
There was no burglary, theft, fraud or any other objective crime
involved.
The fact is insider trading laws exist to justify bogus government
bureaucracies such as the SEC and to delay the inevitable demise of
state-controlled capitalism. Watch that ugly mixture collapse just
like Menger and Mises forewarned a century ago.
Enforcing anti-theft laws and anti-fraud laws are enough to protect
investors from objective crimes in financial markets.
Waksal was prosecuted for this and sent to prison. Later the FDA
realized it erred; Erbitux does in fact work as it is supposed to. So
the FDA recently approved Erbitux but Sam Waksal remains behind bars
and Martha Stewart probably will join him for the error of the FDA.
If the FDA had originally approved it and they'd bought more before
that came out, they'd still have committed crimes.
There are two problems here. The first problem is the unconstitutional
FDA, which exists by violating the fourteenth amendment of the US
Constitution. The FDA has no proper right to interfere in the liberty
and peaceful interactions among citizens including the life-saving
interactions to cure cancer. The second problem is that insider
trading laws are non-objective. They are not grounded in reality;
rather they are grounded in philosophical error and institutionalized
by predatory government.
The FDA has created problems where no problems existed. As a result,
innocent people have suffered (e.g., family members), went to prison
(e.g., Waksal) and died (e.g., hundreds of cancer patients from
2001-2004).
A class-action lawsuit possibly could be made against the FDA for
murdering innocent cancer patients by forcibly withholding a valid
cancer cure from patients for several years.
You need the government's permission to sue it.
Does the government have the power to protect its own agency even if
it mass-murders innocent citizens? That gives the government a blank
check to kill people with impunity. Is this modern America or Nazi
Germany? Maybe it is time to revisit Jefferson's declaration:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
But right now it is
imperative to pardon Mr. Waksal and Ms. Stewart.
They did commit the crimes, didn't they?
They committed non-objective crimes. They violated arbitrary laws that
exist to empower rapacious government prosecutors who rise in society
by smashing the best, most competitive producers.
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In article <c8a3d001.0404031713.18edb00e@posting.google.com>,
Hunter <local_group@usa.com> wrote:
sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote in message news:<c4is4h$7sb$1@panix5.panix.com>...
The FDA originally rejected Erbitux years ago; this prompted Sam
Waksal and Martha Stewart to sell their shares of ImClone stock in
2001.
Your analysis underscores my original point: insider trading laws are
non-objective.
What, precisely, is not objective about "material non-public
information"?
How can information such as the FDA's rejection of
Erbitux become public so that everyone has equal access to it before
anyone else?
How can that sentence be changed so that it makes sense?
What about the newspaper dealers who get the newspaper
first?
What about them? What if they get the newspapers at 4 AM when the
stock market isn't open? Is there an advantage to having the news at
4 AM rather than 8 AM when you can't trade on it until 9:30 AM?
What about the journalists who write about this information for
newspapers? What about reporters who receive phone calls about the
FDA's rejection so they can write the story? What about bureaucrats in
the FDA and those bureaucrats' relatives who hear of the rejection?
They are in possession of "material non-public information" and are
not allowed to trade based on it. Why is that too difficult for you
to understand?
My original point is that insider trading laws are philosophically
untenable.
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your
philosophy. Deal.
Knowledge and information do not obey manmade laws.
So what? Neither do chemical and biological reactions.
_People_ are required to obey those laws, which might mandate
refraining from certain actions due to the possession of knowledge or
information.
By contrast Martha Stewart received a phone call from her stockbroker
who recommended that she sell her shares of ImClone stock. She agreed.
There was no burglary, theft, fraud or any other objective crime
involved.
There was trading based on material non-public information.
The fact is insider trading laws exist to justify bogus government
bureaucracies such as the SEC and to delay the inevitable demise of
state-controlled capitalism. Watch that ugly mixture collapse just
like Menger and Mises forewarned a century ago.
Go ahead and wait. Do us all a favor and hold your breath until then.
Enforcing anti-theft laws and anti-fraud laws are enough to protect
investors from objective crimes in financial markets.
Trading on material non-public information is a form of fraud.
Waksal was prosecuted for this and sent to prison. Later the FDA
realized it erred; Erbitux does in fact work as it is supposed to. So
the FDA recently approved Erbitux but Sam Waksal remains behind bars
and Martha Stewart probably will join him for the error of the FDA.
If the FDA had originally approved it and they'd bought more before
that came out, they'd still have committed crimes.
There are two problems here. The first problem is the unconstitutional
FDA, which exists by violating the fourteenth amendment of the US
Constitution.
That's a separate issue entirely. It doesn't matter if it were
Underwriters Lab (a private organization) that published that the drug
didn't work; someone who knew about the publication before it happened
was in possession of material non-public information.
The second problem is that insider
trading laws are non-objective.
You keep saying that as if it were meaningful.
They are not grounded in reality;
Prison is real.
rather they are grounded in philosophical error
See above about your philosophy.
A class-action lawsuit possibly could be made against the FDA for
murdering innocent cancer patients by forcibly withholding a valid
cancer cure from patients for several years.
You need the government's permission to sue it.
Does the government have the power to protect its own agency even if
it mass-murders innocent citizens?
Yes.
But right now it is
imperative to pardon Mr. Waksal and Ms. Stewart.
They did commit the crimes, didn't they?
They committed non-objective crimes.
You can call their crimes "non-objective" as much as you want, and the
legal system will accord you as much attention as you deserve.
Seth
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Seth Breidbart wrote:
In article <c8a3d001.0404031713.18edb00e@posting.google.com>,
Hunter <local_group@usa.com> wrote:
What, precisely, is not objective about "material non-public
information"?
"material".
I'm not saying that the original poster's comments made any sense
other than that.
....
What about the newspaper dealers who get the newspaper
first?
What about them? What if they get the newspapers at 4 AM when the
stock market isn't open? Is there an advantage to having the news at
4 AM rather than 8 AM when you can't trade on it until 9:30 AM?
Foreign markets?
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ethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote in message news:<c52jbu$676$1@panix5.panix.com>...
Your analysis underscores my original point: insider trading laws are
non-objective.
What, precisely, is not objective about "material non-public
information"?
Insider trading laws are non-objective. And non-objective laws mean
laws that are not based on the protection of individual rights -- of
each citizen's person and property. Non-objective laws are arbitrarily
formed, easily manipulated and citizens do not even know if they are
violating non-objective laws.
Objective laws by contrast are rooted in the protection of individual
rights and are clearly formulated. Citizens know in advance if they
are going to violate an objective law, such as breaking into someone's
house or robbing a bank.
It is an objective crime if financial information is taken by force
from a private source and then used in market trading. But if no force
is used in obtaining financial information, then it is proper to trade
on that information.
What about the newspaper dealers who get the newspaper
first?
What about them? What if they get the newspapers at 4 AM when the
stock market isn't open? Is there an advantage to having the news at
4 AM rather than 8 AM when you can't trade on it until 9:30 AM?
Suppose a California newspaper dealer gets a delivery of newspapers at
4:00 AM. He does not open his doors to the public until 8:00 AM. Hence
the public will not read the headline news regarding the FDA's
rejection of company X's application. But the dealer sees the headline
news at 6:00 AM and realizes that company X's market valuation will
fall. Thus at 6: 30 AM he calls his stockbroker in New York and tells
his stockbroker to sell all his shares of company X.
What about the journalists who write about this information for
newspapers? What about reporters who receive phone calls about the
FDA's rejection so they can write the story? What about bureaucrats in
the FDA and those bureaucrats' relatives who hear of the rejection?
They are in possession of "material non-public information" and are
not allowed to trade based on it. Why is that too difficult for you
to understand?
How can you enforce non-objective laws such as insider trading laws?
Suppose 100 reporters and journalists nationwide trade on this
information before the general public gets it. How do you enforce this
law? The government would have to scrutinize every transaction that
occurred on that day of trading to determine the reason each trade was
made. If the government was able to trace these transactions back to
your so-called "non-public information," then it would start indicting
people. But can you imagine the complexity of having the government
investigate myriad financial transactions? The government could not
even prevent jumbo jets from slamming into skyscrapers. How is it
possible to police myriad stock-market transactions?
My original point is that insider trading laws are philosophically
untenable.
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your
philosophy. Deal.
Those things -- those arbitrary laws, irrational policies, statist
institutions and confused mentalities -- they all come from
philosophy, but not the philosophy I espouse.
The fact is insider trading laws exist to justify bogus government
bureaucracies such as the SEC and to delay the inevitable demise of
state-controlled capitalism. Watch that ugly mixture collapse just
like Menger and Mises forewarned a century ago.
Go ahead and wait. Do us all a favor and hold your breath until then.
No need to wait; the outcome is guaranteed. Menger battled the German
Historicists for a decade, arguing against government intervention in
the economy and warned of the dire consequences of interventionism.
The German Historicists rejected Menger wholesale and the world has
since forgotten Menger. Yet reality does not forget. Bismarck's
Welfare state collapsed, the Weimar Republic collapsed and the Third
Reich collapsed -- each of which implemented the German Historicist's
ideology of interventionism.
Societal collapse can occur rapidly as in the case of Weimar Germany
or it can occur slowly as in the case of America. But the law of cause
and effect is inviolable. Government intervention in the economy must
beget more intervention until markets are destroyed and society
collapses.
Enforcing anti-theft laws and anti-fraud laws are enough to protect
investors from objective crimes in financial markets.
Trading on material non-public information is a form of fraud.
This is a contextual -- not absolute -- rule. If the information was
gained through force a la Boesky, then yes, using that information
does defraud the market because that information was locked away in
someone's private file cabinet. But if your stockbroker calls you and
advises you to sell your shares, you can rightfully sell without any
fraud being involved.
You cannot reasonably question where your stockbroker got his
information from or where his source got it from, and then try to
determine if other people have access to the same knowledge. In
financial markets, you have to move fast. There was heavy trading of
ImClone shares the day Martha sold her shares of ImClone stock. The
other traders did not sit around pondering if they have "material
non-public information." Instead, they sold as fast as they could.
There are two problems here. The first problem is the unconstitutional
FDA, which exists by violating the fourteenth amendment of the US
Constitution.
That's a separate issue entirely. It doesn't matter if it were
Underwriters Lab (a private organization) that published that the drug
didn't work; someone who knew about the publication before it happened
was in possession of material non-public information.
No private organization can arrogate force-backed power to intervene
in ImClone's operations like the FDA did. A private organization must
get ImClone's consent to test the drug. And it is each investor's
responsibility to do diligent research to find out if the drug
received approval by the private organization. This is one aspect of
market research that enables astute investors to profit while causing
lax investors to miss opportunities.
Prison is real.
Prison is real but its use today is unreal. As deduced from the Bureau
of Justice Statistics, up to 22% of the two million US prison
population did not violate any natural laws. They have been
incarcerated for violating non-objective laws and committing
non-objective crimes such as:
1. Selling "prurient" books
2. Selling "obscene" videos
3. Possessing marijuana
4. Engaging in "anti-competitive" behavior
5. Engaging in "insider trading" activity
6. And other
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n article <c8a3d001.0404082009.73bc1bd7@posting.google.com>,
Hunter <local_group@usa.com> wrote:
sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote in message news:<c52jbu$676$1@panix5.panix.com>...
Your analysis underscores my original point: insider trading laws are
non-objective.
Insider trading laws are non-objective.
Your answer is non-responsive. A request for specific explanation is
not answered by a reptition of the original statement. Is that the
best form of argument of which you are capable?
And non-objective laws mean
laws that are not based on the protection of individual rights -- of
each citizen's person and property.
Perhaps the concept of "fraud" is not one you consider important. If
someone sold you a used car without revealing the facts (known to the
seller) that it had several serious problems, would you consider that
wrong? Why should a stock be different?
It is an objective crime if financial information is taken by force
from a private source and then used in market trading. But if no force
is used in obtaining financial information, then it is proper to trade
on that information.
So you would consider fraud to be acceptable.
What about the newspaper dealers who get the newspaper
first?
What about them? What if they get the newspapers at 4 AM when the
stock market isn't open? Is there an advantage to having the news at
4 AM rather than 8 AM when you can't trade on it until 9:30 AM?
Suppose a California newspaper dealer gets a delivery of newspapers at
4:00 AM. He does not open his doors to the public until 8:00 AM. Hence
the public will not read the headline news regarding the FDA's
rejection of company X's application. But the dealer sees the headline
news at 6:00 AM and realizes that company X's market valuation will
fall. Thus at 6: 30 AM he calls his stockbroker in New York and tells
his stockbroker to sell all his shares of company X.
And those of his customer who care about the market have been watching
the news on television, or on the web, or on Bloomberg, or Newswire,
and saw the news even before the newspaper was printed.
What about the journalists who write about this information for
newspapers? What about reporters who receive phone calls about the
FDA's rejection so they can write the story? What about bureaucrats in
the FDA and those bureaucrats' relatives who hear of the rejection?
They are in possession of "material non-public information" and are
not allowed to trade based on it. Why is that too difficult for you
to understand?
How can you enforce non-objective laws such as insider trading laws?
They seem to be doing a fairly decent job of it, at least as well as
they enforce "objective" laws like burglary.
Suppose 100 reporters and journalists nationwide trade on this
information before the general public gets it. How do you enforce this
law?
Fine or jail all of them. Suppose 1,000 burglars break into houses
that same night. How do you enforce the anti-burglary laws?
The government would have to scrutinize every transaction that
occurred on that day of trading to determine the reason each trade was
made.
Are you claming that only laws that are perfectly enforced should
exist? In that case, there would be no laws.
If the government was able to trace these transactions back to
your so-called "non-public information," then it would start indicting
people. But can you imagine the complexity of having the government
investigate myriad financial transactions?
Better than you, apparently, since I'm aware that the government
actually does it.
The government could not
even prevent jumbo jets from slamming into skyscrapers. How is it
possible to police myriad stock-market transactions?
So according to you there should be no laws against making jumbo jets
slam into skyscrapers? Is that your argument?
My original point is that insider trading laws are philosophically
untenable.
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your
philosophy. Deal.
Those things -- those arbitrary laws, irrational policies, statist
institutions and confused mentalities -- they all come from
philosophy, but not the philosophy I espouse.
My philosophy says that your philosophy is bogus, and there's no
reason for me to care about it.
The fact is insider trading laws exist to justify bogus government
bureaucracies such as the SEC and to delay the inevitable demise of
state-controlled capitalism. Watch that ugly mixture collapse just
like Menger and Mises forewarned a century ago.
Go ahead and wait. Do us all a favor and hold your breath until then.
No need to wait;
So you're claiming it happened already?
the outcome is guaranteed.
What do you mean by "guaranteed"? You hope it will happen?
Societal collapse can occur rapidly as in the case of Weimar Germany
or it can occur slowly as in the case of America. But the law of cause
and effect is inviolable.
But your bogus pairing of a particular type of law with a particular
effect is not a law.
Government intervention in the economy must
beget more intervention until markets are destroyed and society
collapses.
For a value of "must" meaning "you hope".
Enforcing anti-theft laws and anti-fraud laws are enough to protect
investors from objective crimes in financial markets.
Trading on material non-public information is a form of fraud.
This is a contextual -- not absolute -- rule.
Why should anybody else care about your characterization?
If the information was
gained through force a la Boesky, then yes, using that information
does defraud the market because that information was locked away in
someone's private file cabinet. But if your stockbroker calls you and
advises you to sell your shares, you can rightfully sell without any
fraud being involved.
You cannot reasonably question where your stockbroker got his
information from or where his source got it from,
So you're opposed to all laws against possession of stolen property as
well, then? If someone steals your stereo and sells it, the buyer
should be permitted to keep it, because he can't reasonably question
where the seller got it from, right?
There are two problems here. The first problem is the unconstitutional
FDA, which exists by violating the fourteenth amendment of the US
Constitution.
That's a separate issue entirely. It doesn't matter if it were
Underwriters Lab (a private organization) that published that the drug
didn't work; someone who knew about the publication before it happened
was in possession of material non-public information.
No
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ethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote in message news:<c5i17u$nsq$1@panix5.panix.com>...
What, precisely, is not objective about "material non-public
information"?
Insider trading laws are non-objective.
Your answer is non-responsive. A request for specific explanation is
not answered by a reptition of the original statement. Is that the
best form of argument of which you are capable?
I never claimed that "material non-public information" is not
objective. I said insider trading laws are non-objective.
And non-objective laws mean
laws that are not based on the protection of individual rights -- of
each citizen's person and property.
Perhaps the concept of "fraud" is not one you consider important.
Fraud is an indirect use of force and must be punished through the
legal system.
If
someone sold you a used car without revealing the facts (known to the
seller) that it had several serious problems, would you consider that
wrong? Why should a stock be different?
This is a non sequitur. A failure of disclosure is different than
insider trading.
It is an objective crime if financial information is taken by force
from a private source and then used in market trading. But if no force
is used in obtaining financial information, then it is proper to trade
on that information.
So you would consider fraud to be acceptable.
Fraud is an indirect use of force and is not acceptable.
If say Boesky broke into a company's locked office and stole
confidential information to use in trading, he would be initiating
physical force and this would be illicit. In a different example, if
Boesky asked the company's CEO to divulge confidential information
because Boesky said he wanted to start a related business but really
was planning to use that information in trading, Boesky would be
getting that confidential information fraudulently. These two
instances of force and fraud are both violations of natural law and
should be punished in the courts.
How can you enforce non-objective laws such as insider trading laws?
They seem to be doing a fairly decent job of it, at least as well as
they enforce "objective" laws like burglary.
This is Gresham's Law in practice. By injecting unbacked paper money
into the economy, specie-backed money goes out of circulation and the
economy gets distorted and moves toward chaos. By injecting into the
vocabulary words that lack objective referents in reality, valid words
disappear from use and then thinking and communication breaks down. By
injecting non-objective laws into the legal system, valid laws fall
into disuse while the courts focus on adjudicating non-objective laws.
Thus the only valid function of government -- contractual and physical
protection -- is undermined and society becomes unstable.
Suppose 100 reporters and journalists nationwide trade on this
information before the general public gets it. How do you enforce this
law?
Fine or jail all of them. Suppose 1,000 burglars break into houses
that same night. How do you enforce the anti-burglary laws?
Anti-burglary laws are objective and thus enforcement also is
objective.
The government would have to scrutinize every transaction that
occurred on that day of trading to determine the reason each trade was
made.
Are you claming that only laws that are perfectly enforced should
exist? In that case, there would be no laws.
I am claiming that if a law is non-objective, then it necessarily
follows that enforcement of the non-objective law will be
incomprehensible. In practice this means enforcement will come from
the arbitrary ruling of a government bureaucrat. Yet justice cannot be
achieved through arbitrary rulings.
If the government was able to trace these transactions back to
your so-called "non-public information," then it would start indicting
people. But can you imagine the complexity of having the government
investigate myriad financial transactions?
Better than you, apparently, since I'm aware that the government
actually does it.
Look at the cost of the government trying to enforce non-objective
laws such as insider trading laws. It has to assemble specious
bureaucracies such as the SEC, hire armed bureaucrats to storm Wall
Street firms, disrupt financial markets, fine and incarcerate innocent
citizens, sell worthless bonds to the Federal Reserve to pay for this,
and forgo prosecuting objective crimes in order to use governmental
resources to enforce arbitrary laws. This destabilizes society.
The government could not
even prevent jumbo jets from slamming into skyscrapers. How is it
possible to police myriad stock-market transactions?
So according to you there should be no laws against making jumbo jets
slam into skyscrapers? Is that your argument?
My argument is that the government struggles to deal effectively with
objective crimes such as happened on 9/11. Let us not burden
government by having it try to enforce non-objective laws too. If we
do, then government will do neither adequately.
Those things -- those arbitrary laws, irrational policies, statist
institutions and confused mentalities -- they all come from
philosophy, but not the philosophy I espouse.
My philosophy says that your philosophy is bogus, and there's no
reason for me to care about it.
It is understandable that you want to cling to your moribund
philosophy like the passengers clung to the Titanic as it was sinking.
The implicit reasoning goes something like this, "There's no time to
reach for a life preserver, silly! I'm too busy clinging to the ship!"
The fact is insider trading laws exist to justify bogus government
bureaucracies such as the SEC and to delay the inevitable demise of
state-controlled capitalism. Watch that ugly mixture collapse just
like Menger and Mises forewarned a century ago.
Go ahead and wait. Do us all a favor and hold your breath until then.
No need to wait;
So you're claiming it happened already?
I am claiming that the outcome is inevitable based on past and present
trends.
the outcome is guaranteed.
What do you mean by "guaranteed"?
I mean the collapse of the economy cannot be avoided if past and
present trends continue into the future.
You hope it will happen?
If I wished for the economy to collapse, I would advocate the
following policies:
* Issue fiat money rather than specie money
* Grant the Federal Reserve Bank a monopoly privilege to issue money
* Let the Federal Reserve Bank regulate private banks
* Chronically inflate the money supply through politicized credit
expansion
* Enact price controls on businesses
* Enact minimum wage laws
* Empower labor unions with
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