Re: whitehouse web incident, viva la web revolution

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu writes:
> Well why don't you do that and come back with the results eh? You have to 
> actually _talk_ to them for the knowledge to transfer Perry y' know.

I know the results. 99% of them laughed about the whole thing for
weeks. The poster caricature of Hillary Clinton with a crystal ball
and a thought ballon filled with cattle that I saw on one floor was
particularly amusing.

The thing was a universal joke. I never heard anyone who would be
nicer than to say the whole thing was extremely suspicious.

> You still don't understand, the $1000 is not the stake, it is merely
> the deposit. The stake is Hillary's entire net worth, that is what
> she is betting with.

Gee, Mr. Hallam-Baker, it seems your ignorance about what she was
trading (I believe you thought it was "options" before) also extends
to an ignorance about how the futures markets work or how securities
accounts work.

> Rubbish, thats only 25 contracts sold without a loss. Depending on
> the market one usually takes a profit when selling a contract. 

Making that kind of return in day trades in the cattle markets? You
out of your ever living mind?

Its not like there was even any basis for her trades that she could
articulate. Thats because the trades were made without any basis, in
matched pairs.

(By the way, learn what a contract is. A contract is not the same as a
trade. You are sounding thoroughly ridiculous.)

> These are not "one in a million trades" Perry, they are the sort of
> trade that one would expect to make in an underwritting capacity for
> a commodity market.

You ARE out of your ever living mind.

The average individual account holder at Refco "blows out" (that is,
loses their entire stake) within six months of opening their
account. Refco is one of the more reputable places to trade futures.

You are simply an ignoramous, talking totally outside your
league. Have you ever so much as bought a futures contract or an
options contract? Have you even ever opened a securities account?

> >I will state this for the record: Having examined the evidence, I
> >would say that even a non-expert who was reasonably informed about how
> >the futures markets work would have no choice but to conclude that
> >Hillary Clinton's trading pattern was impossible without some sort of
> >fraud being committed.
> 
> So you think that the Republican's in Washington haven't figured out
> what Perry Metzger has? 

Of course they know. There just isn't anything that can be done. There
is no proof. Its more or less as though one finds a man with gunpowder
stains on his hands, and a bullet embedded in the wall of his office
and human blood soaking the carpet. You can't prove that he killed
anyone. You can never get a conviction. But you can know.

Well, it was announced, and the media discussed it, and Hillary gave
her teary eyed press conference cynically wearing a matronly outfit,
and she gave her usual raft of "I cannot recalls" and "I don't
remembers" and given no additional evidence, the whole thing ended.

> Perry, its the crux of your case, you are claiming that Hilary
> committed fraud but you do not know whether the responsibility for
> covering the trades is on the broker or on the client.

The fraud was in the ticket switching, so it makes no difference that
the margin requirements were not made.

The other crime was, of course, bribery. However, without records or
information, there is no way to prove any of it. The mere fact that
all the records from the brokerage were mysteriously destroyed should
make you wonder.

> You are mouthing off that Hillary was illegally trading without
> putting up margin when you don't know whether or not that is a
> crime.
 
Switching the tickets was the fraud. Taking bribes was also a crime. I
have no concern as to whether the margin requirements issue was
criminal -- it was probably only a civil violation. In any case it
makes no difference -- there is more than enough crime here to go
around.

Perry