The new (Jan-Feb) issue of Mother Jones includes an article dismissive of DeepCapture, giving this site a 4 out of 5 on their tinfoil-hat meter without pretense of contradictory argument or evidence. Instead, Elizabeth Gettelman (research editor of Mother Jones) simply says “Fuhgeddaboutit” regarding DeepCapture’s thesis (which she also distorts). As far as I can tell, Ms. Gettelman’s idea of reasoned discourse is, “I work at Mother Jones, so I do not need to make as coherent an argument as one would expect from a college sophomore.”
In response, I posted this on InvestorVillage:
Mother Jones Defends Establishment
Well I thought I had seen it all. But I had not. Mother Jones has sided against us.
For years I listened to Lefties in academia. They could not say anything without working in the word “corporation”… They decry markets without knowing, in general, what they are talking about. They complain about unseemly relationships among corporations, government officials, and the corporate press.
But now they are faced with an actual series of events, entirely documented, whereby the public has been ripped off by the corporations that dominate our capital market while the government issued hall passes and the captured press obediently refused to report even when their faces were shoved into the data. In short, they have been handed precisely the situation that they have been fantasizing about for years. And what do they do? They say it is all far too improbable, and defend the Establishment.
Here is the Mother Jones article I’m talking about. If you feel like doing so, leave a comment.
Patrick
Over the following days a number of folks showed up at Mother Jones and wrote comments that were critical of MotherJones, but not overly aggressive or inappropriate. Yesterday those comments disappeared. Maybe they’ll reappear, but for now, the position of Mother Jones is: Something is true simply because they say so, thus their journalism need include neither facts nor argument, and dissenting opinion should be expunged.
Why am I not surprised?
Please follow the links in the preceding post, and if you share my astonishment that Mother Jones would publish a piece of such low intellectual caliber, free to leave you opinion on the article itself, and on Mother Jones’ backtalk page. Maybe if you are lucky the censors will permit your voice to be heard.
If that 2 paragragh incoherent blurb is what we are discussing then we are really making much ado about nothing. The author clearly did not do her homework and was given a directive to follow. After all we have been thru and witnessed we should not even pay this thrash any mind. I know I won’t. Press on Deepcapture, more criminals to out.
Patrick,
It’s shameful how you “bully” such poor, helpless writers as this lady at MJ by posting comments containing facts and rational argument.
I submit it is no more surprising that MJ would stoop to this kind of pandering to the Wall Street money muscle than it is that we’ve seen the same thing year in and year out at such venerable mouthpieces of the left as the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Time, Newsweek, and the remaining usual suspects. And it’s not just the left. Try the WSJ, National Review and on up and down the line. Some things they just won’t do or say, and those are the things that the very big money of Wall Street and Stamford does not want them to do or say.
Money in the mega-billions is so influential its owners don’t have to raise a finger. By just being there, the ideas of its owners instantly become the most persuasive known to mankind. MJ is just another in a very long list of organizations which respond in that way.
I’m looking forward to DC telling more about those mega-billionaires as mentioned a while back. Thanks.
It doesn’t matter what they say, as long as they spell your name (URL) right.
SEC testimony:
http://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/2009/ts010509hdk.htm
Mother’s Lullabies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rYXZnoMn0&NR=1
I don’t know what kind of prog publication MoJo is supposed to be. They’re named after a radical labor firebrand, but they publish swill like this – and I remember about a year ago they ran a big special issue on how you can’t even think about withdrawing from Iraq. They are like the new New Republic.
The article,under the surface reeked of CATFIGHT and prominent nails. Could the article by Elizabeth Gettelman (female) have been influenced by none other than our own Bethany McLea (female) ? I just got that scorn woman vendetta kind of feeling after reading it, The similarities in attack words used bear a striking resemblance to each others articles in regards to PB. Is there dots to connect ?
R101
that Mother Jones piece is a joke and so is their feeble attempt to censor comments (mine included)….I will never buy another copy of that tripe again
Any official word yet on the outcome of the votes ? How long does it take to verify 7805 votes?
I wonder if there was some jealousy on behalf of Elizabeth Gettelman regarding the unofficial winner Deep Capture for the Best Business Blog category? Was Mother Jones ever in the running at all ? I am so disappointed she chose to dismiss fact (documented in Deep Capture) without even backing her article with any(fact) and chose to use smear tactics instead to base her article on. I wonder what amount and whose $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ influenced that trash piece?
R101
“SHAREHOLDER ADVOCATES” AND NAVIGATING THROUGH THE “LIQUIDITY” DUST STORM
The proponents of naked short selling abuses will typically cite all of this wonderful “liquidity” that they inject into the markets of especially thinly traded securities. Most abusive naked short selling (ANSS) is associated with market makers (MMs) illegally accessing the exemption accorded to “bona fide” MMs ONLY from pre-borrowing or making “locates” of shares before making admittedly naked short sales.
Yes, naked short selling is 100% legal IF it is done by a MM acting in the capacity of a “bona fide” MM. This is referred to as “legitimate naked short selling” or “LNSS”. Most cases of ANSS are associated with a MM illegally accessing this powerful but universally abused exemption either for itself while trading in its “in house proprietary” accounts or on behalf of typically unregulated hedge funds. The quid pro quo for an unregulated hedge fund to gain access to this “umbrella of immunity” from making pre-borrows or “locates” is typically paid in “order flow” to the abusive MM. Accessing this exemption is especially beneficial when attacking corporations with hard to borrow securities that are typically also expensive to borrow as any “borrow” can be easily but illegally circumvented.
How must a truly “bona fide” MM act in order to legally access this powerful exemption? A “bona fide” MM buffers wide swings in share prices by naked short selling nonexistent shares in markets characterized by order imbalances involving buy orders dwarfing sell orders and then buying them back when the share price drops due as sell orders overwhelm buy orders. Bona fide MMs can make a comfortable living by taking advantage of the “spread” between the highest bid and lowest offer.
There is a problem with this concept though and it has to do with how our DTCC-administered clearance and settlement has been illegally converted to a system with a foundation based on mere “collateralization versus payment” (CVP) instead of “delivery versus payment” or (DVP) as mandated by Congress in Section 17 A of the ’34 Exchange Act. What does this have to do with “bona fide” market making? In a clearance and settlement system based on CVP the sellers of shares need not deliver the shares that they sell and yet they gain access to the funds of the unknowing investor that purchased the shares sold. They need only collateralize the monetary value of the failed delivery obligation on a daily marked to market basis.
Thus as the share price predictably “tanks” from the accumulation of readily sellable “securities entitlements” that result from failures to deliver the unknowing investor’s funds flow to the seller of nonexistent shares despite the fact that they continue to refuse to deliver that which they sell. This concept of being able to gain access to the funds of an investor without ever delivering that which you sold him is referred to as the “ultimate paradox” of Wall Street.
So what does this have to do with ANSS frauds involving “not so” bona fide MMs? After establishing a naked short position by theoretically legally naked short selling into markets with buy orders dwarfing sell orders which results in the ability to easily put the share price of the corporation into a “death spiral” the typical MM isn’t in much of a hurry to deploy the proceeds of these “thefts” back into the market by “injecting liquidity” into markets in need of buy orders as the share price drops. After all it was the MM’s activity that forced the share price downwards. What kind of an idiot would ever buy shares back i.e. cover his naked short position when they can make a fortune by selling nonexistent shares all day long? At the end of the day does a MM want a large pile of cash or a small pile of cash as buying back the shares previously naked short sold costs money?
When abusive MMs realized that our clearance and settlement system had been illegally converted to a foundation based upon mere CVP when it came time to redeploy the stolen funds back into the market when buy orders were needed as share prices dropped they were nowhere to be found. At this moment in time regulators can now detect whether the accessing of the exemption was legal or illegal. A truly bona fide MM will cover preestablished naked short positions ON THE VERY NEXT DOWNTICK IN SHARE PRICES. He is happy with living off of the “spread”.
This concept of generously injecting all of this “liquidity” via naked short selling starts to ring a little hollow when it is only one-sided liquidity designed to take advantage of corruption within our clearance and settlement system.
Abusive MMs can “accidentally” ring up massive naked short positions while willfully ripping off investors in a clearance and settlement system with a corrupt foundation. As these “open short positions” need to be “collateralized” on a daily marked to market basis because of this “CVP” foundation after a while the abusive MM is forced by financial realities to naked short sell into every buy order that appears less the share price go up and his collateralization requirements go through the roof.
This is referred to as illegally “capping” a market from going up in share price. You’ve seen these markets. No matter how much buying is introduced there is a mystery seller to match every buy order. Sometimes the entire “float” of readily sellable securities will change hands on a daily basis. The question arises as to when this theoretically beneficial “injection of liquidity” becomes illegal “capping” of a market. The answer is every time there is a downtick in the share price wherein those that established the naked short positions previously refuse to deploy their stolen booty to cover these “open short positions”. The problem is that abusive MMs can get painted into a corner when they financially can’t cover an astronomically large naked short position.
Why is this? Because in the markets of thinly traded securities it is easy to intentionally knock down the share price by 95%. But in order to cover a naked short position first you have to stop the day to day naked short selling. If you’ve been pretty much the only seller all along then the mere stopping of the daily naked short selling will result in the share price gapping upwards. Trying to cover an astronomically large naked short position in a market that is already gapping upwards might be financially impossible.
Abusive naked short sellers see how incredibly easy it is to wipe out a share price at the beginning of a “bear raid” before management has figured out what hit them. The abusive hedge fund managers that get paid based on 2% of assets under management and 20% of all profits make a fortune even before covering since they are paid based upon marked to market accounting.
Many of these thieves portray themselves as “shareholder advocates” via some pretty circuitous logic. They posit that due to their superior knowledge of the markets they can pick out the companies with lousy business plans. They then wipe out these corporations, the investments made therein and the employees thereof. Why? Because they’re acting as “shareholder advocates” so that no NEW prospective investors can be ensnared in this trap involving a faulty business plan. The obvious question arises as to since when does a legitimate “shareholder advocate” intentionally sell nonexistent shares to investors and then refuse to deliver that which they sold while accessing the funds of the defrauded investors?
I just wanted to say that it is important to consider adopting another phrase to describe the systemic issue which leads to the lack of integrity and corruption of which you are reporting so that critics like MJ cannot refer to the alleged perpetrators as the “mafia”. I understand that Deep Capture itself is a phrase to describe this issue but really it is that America has a “Fascist Business Model”. Patrick et al please keep up the expose should it cause one individuals conscience to be awoken that is enough if not: God sees all.(for the all the athiests out there the ‘void’ sees it all as well) America this is your wake up call the Emperor isn’t wearing a skin tight transparent D & G body suit.
P.S. Saw Bethany Mclean on the Daily Show. We simply cannot question her integrity because she is the business reporter that exposed the Enron scandal. She works for VF now.
Scott,
“P.S. Saw Bethany Mclean on the Daily Show. We simply cannot question her integrity because she is the business reporter that exposed the Enron scandal. She works for VF now.”
Just food for thought Scott. Did you read the emails between Bethany McLean and Hedge Fund Cronies that were exposed via Fairfax discovery ? Its all in Deep Capture.
Bethany McLean did indeed expose Enron I give her that. Ever thought about what her Shortie friends made betting against Enron when it was exposed ? I have no problem with Crooks being exposed. I do have problems when journalist do Hatchet JOB articles on companies singled out by and directed by Hedgefunds who have bets (short/naked short) against those companies in hopes their shares will drop so they reap million upon millions of dollars.
Here is the article Scott. As shocking as it is, this was found in discovery in Fairfax suit.
Bethany McLean: your benefit of the doubt is hereby revoked
December 16th, 2008 by Judd Bagley
There’s no sense denying it: reporters depend on sources, and in the mind of most business journalists, a connected hedge fund manager will always prove a more valuable source than even the CEO of a public company.
Hence, as I’ve reminded my fellow market reformers time and time again, it is not necessarily a sign of corruption that some business journalists — Bethany McLean included — regularly toe the hedge fund line.
However, as I’ve very recently learned — at least in the case of Bethany McLean — I was wrong.
What changed my mind?
Christmas.
Rather, the early Christmas that arrived for me in the form of about 1,000 pages of discovery just unsealed in the Fairfax Financial (NYSE:FFH) vs. SAC Capital, et al, lawsuit, in which Fairfax claims a conspiracy (or “Enterprise” as it is termed in the suit) involving multiple short-selling hedge funds, financial analysts and business journalists intent on destroying the company for monetary gain.
Included in this mass of documents are hundreds of emails and instant message transcripts between hedge fund managers, their operatives and such “journalists” as Bethany McLean, Herb Greenberg, and Roddy Boyd.
Almost without exception, each of these is immensely useful in understanding how these folks all relate to each other. But among them all, the most revealing — to say nothing of damning — are those between Bethany McLean, then of Fortune, and the upstanding folks at hedge fund Copper River Management.
The emails appear below in blue, with my comments in black.
From: Marc Cohodes
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2006 3:21:12 PM
To: Bethany McLean
Subject: ffh
FFH is the Canadian Enron and it could even be worse…We are sending you stufff.. I suggest since [Copper River employee and former SEC attorney Richard] Sauer is on the East Coast (for now) that you 2 meet, and soon… there is an “enterprise” here and he can lay it out clear as day.
It bears noting that, according to filings in the Fairfax suit, the various participants in the attack on Fairfax stock referred to their effort collectively as “the Enterprise”. Whether or not this is what Cohodes was alluding to when using the term — which might not otherwise belong within quote marks in this context — is not clear, but certainly suggestive.
From: Bethany McLean
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2006 3:48:43 PM
To: Marc Cohodes
Subject: Re: ffh
Makes sense. Send me whatever you can think of – the more documents the better!
Without Cohodes offering a bit of proof to back his Enron/Fairfax comparison, McLean finds it “makes sense” and commits to move ahead.
From: Marc Cohodes
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2006 3:51:37 PM
To: Bethany McLean
Subject: Re: ffh
don’t you worry…where do you want the stuff fed-exed to… I would set up a time for Sauer to come and see ya.. His code name is “Lavaman”…
Cohodes then forwards this exchange to employee Rick Sauer, who schedules a meeting between himself and an unusually eager McLean, set for one week thence.
The outcome of that process was McLean’s scathing March 6, 2007 Fortune piece: The inside story of a Wall Street battle royal.
How can I be certain that this particular story was the direct result of the Cohodes’s efforts? The answer to that question is where the situation becomes particularly disturbing…sufficient to leave me feeling physically ill, and prepared to officially add Bethany McLean to the short but distinguished list of truly captured and corrupt journalists.
From: Marc Cohodes
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 9:51 AM
To: Bethany McLean
Subject: ffh
you hear anything there??? the stock is up 45 points since your piece and I dont understand it…
Of note: on March 5, 2007 FFH closed at $190.09, and on March 21, 2007, FFH closed at $234.53, a difference of $44.43.
From: Bethany McLean
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:51:57 AM
To: Marc Cohodes
Subject: Re: ffh
I’m getting the same question from other people. No, I don’t have a clue. I’m worried they’ve gotten the SEC or the Southern District to take them seriously – the Spyro [Contogouris] stuff makes you realize anything is possible – and they’re leaking the news to shareholders ahead of time. What do you think?
A day later, Cohodes icily responds with nothing more than his cell phone number.
From: Marc Cohodes
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 5:12 PM
To: Bethany McLean
Subject: Re: ffh
415-350-88**
Based on McLean’s reply, we can presume she followed Cohodes’s tacit demand, and that the conversation was less than pleasant.
From: Bethany McLean
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 6:12:48 PM
To: Marc Cohodes
Subject: Re: ffh
Sorry to be a little bad-tempered. This FFH story almost killed me, so I hate hearing that it was pointless. Maybe it’ll be a long, slow thing..
I suspect the emails you’ve just read are the real reason Bethany McLean made a sudden departure from the world of business journalism earlier this year.
As for me, it’s been nearly 24 hours since I first encountered this exchange, and yet I still cannot read it without feeling like I’ve just taken a blow to the solar plexus.
Seeing proof that both a hedge fund manager and an ostensibly reputable business writer viewed the sacred institution of journalism as a means of wrecking a company, and that they both also felt disappointment when their efforts proved insufficient, with the “journalist” finding solace in the prospect that the company’s eventual destruction might simply be a “long, slow thing” literally leaves me breathless.
Stay tuned for still more of the explosive revelations found within the reams and reams of discovery in this case.
Just a thought..A lot of larger Hedge Funds (Citadel amongst others) have stopped withdrawals/redemptions from their funds until some future date March 2009 ect. But what if ALL Hedge Funds (or MOST) were Ponzi shemes and could not afford to pay their customers. Interesting thought huh?Now you know why they fought tooth and nail not to be registered. Dr. Decosta any comments on this thought?
Sean,
Judging by the way these fund managers are either under indictment, under suspicion, on the run or faking their deaths it would not surprise me in the least. Great observation. I did notice where our most astute SEC officials are spitting out Ponzi scheme’s right and left since Madoff case and yes, many were reported years ago to no avail.
R101
Dr. DeCosta, you will see this with stocks that get cellar boxed:
Bid: $.001
Ask: $.002
If the company suddenly does something good, they continue to sell infinitely at $.002 because to let it go up to $.002 bid doubles their collateral requirement over night. It’s cheaper to keep selling into every bid.
david n,
Where did you get that term “cellar boxing”. I haven’t written about “cellar boxing” in years. I’ve probably studied 30 or 40 of these scenarios with the bid/offer being 0.000 to 0.001 or bid 0.001 offered at 0.002. Your observation is bang on. There are some really interesting phenomena that go on with these. What do you technically have in a market with 0.000 bid and 0.001 offer? You technically have an “order imbalance” of buy orders dwarfing sell orders because anybody wanting to sell hasn’t got a bid to hit. What do truly bona fide MMs do in these scenarios? They naked short sell into this “order imbalance”.
Wiping out 98% of a company’s share price is a piece of cake but naked short sellers can and do misdiagnose good companies as scams and they have trouble knocking the company out of its misery while going for the Jugular because smart investors with more expertise in the business that the corporation under attack is in might be buying shares at 1% of book value.
Truly bona fide MMs, however, sell a moderate amount of shares at the offer and then allow the share price to find its natural equilibrium level up higher. They WANT TO sell shares at higher levels than lower levels. Crooks with astronomically large preexisting naked short positions don’t have that luxury. They have to “cap” the share price with a “blanket” of selling because their collateralization requirements will go ballistic if they don’t.
It’s funny but when “bear raids” mature the activities of MMs sometimes take on a bit of legitimacy. Don’t get me wrong it’s still fraud plain and simple. The collateralization requirements do get volatile when one uptick represents a 100% gain. When a company gets “cellar boxed” you can expect a few things. Firstly, there’s going to be a ton of “painting the tape” at the end of each trading session by both the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in different directions. Secondly, the “bad guys” are going to do everything in their power to get the company “delisted” by the SEC. Thankfully, the corruption at the SEC has been highlighted so much lately with the Aguirre and other cases that perhaps nobody is left at the SEC with the cajones to initiate an administrative proceeding at the request of some hedge fund crony.
Another thing that you’re going to see is management getting a ton of calls from strangers that want to do massive financings “because they love the company so much” even though they probably don’t have a clue as to what business the company is in. These are the shorts coming as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Remember if there are a “gang” of corrupt MMs and hedge funds attacking if just one of them “jumps ship” and covers then they all might be toast.
One of the ironies we see in “cellar boxing” is the ability of the securities fraudsters to convert a normally share price buoying buy order into a share price depressing “securities entitlements” instantaneously with the naked short sale. With a clearance and settlement system based upon mere CVP both buy and sell orders can be share price depressing. That’s a pleasant thought.
If the foundation of a clearance and settlement system is corrupt as it is with a clearance and settlement system based on merely “collateralization versus payment” (CVP) and not “delivery versus payment” (DVP) then the entire market system it supports will also be corrupt and you’ll see signs and symptoms of this corruption periodically like the insanity associated with BOTH buy and sell orders depressing share prices.
Another sign/symptom of a corrupt system is the idiosyncrasy associated with the “ultimate paradox” which is the ability of the seller of nonexistent shares to access the funds of the investor despite their refusal to deliver that which they sold. What’s one reason they don’t deliver these “shares”? It’s because they don’t exist. In what other business besides Wall Street can you refuse to deliver that which you sell and still keep the investor’s money?
Crimes as obvious and heinous as this cannot be committed in the light of day. They need the lack of transparency that Wall Street, the DTCC and hedge funds are obsessed with.
Sean, in re: your question about ponzi schemes if the Madoffs of the world did no trades then the SIPC aspect would get interesting. What I worry more about is how the SIPC does not cover loaned shares and if the NSCC’s SBP is cranking out gazillions of bogus “loans” through its self-replenishing nature then the insolvency of a huge clearing firm might get crazy. But isn’t this what might be expected of a “house of cards” associated with this little “industry within an industry” we refer to as abusive naked short selling?
Naked shorting of government bonds may be the story that has legs with the media. Catch this one:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45472
People understand what it means for a brokerage to borrow someone’s money at government interest rates and lie and tell them they are actually buying a government bond.
The investor thinks he’s investing in Uncle Sam when really he or she’s lending to some house of cards Wallstreet firm.
Cellar boxing is the term industry people use. Did you coin it originally?
Once a stock gets in the cellar, they can’t let it ever climb out.
Fears of Madoff-style Scandal As Florida Fund Manager Goes Missing
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/246514.html
slightly dated, but predictive.
if you today try to find out about the Foundation for National Progress, operators of Mother Jones, on their own site, you’re told nothing about who they are, but redirected to their fund raising pitch.
discovered at: http://www.questionsquestions.net/feldman/feldman05.html
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP:
SPONSORED BY CIA’s FORD FOUNDATION?
Part 5:
MOTHER JONES / Foundation for National Progress
Like FAIR/COUNTERSPIN/IPA, MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress received a lot of money from Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive Director Bill Moyers’ Schumann Foundation in the 1990s. In 1995, for instance, MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress was given a $500,000 grant by Moyers’ Schumann Foundation “to support MOTHER JONES magazine.” A second grant of $150,000 was given to MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress in 1996 “to support the hiring of a new senior editor at MOTHER JONES magazine.” And an additional grant of $100,000 was given to MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress in 1997 “to promote money in politics investigation by MOTHER JONES magazine.” As Rick Edmunds noted in a recent essay on the internet (entitled “Getting Behind the Media: What are the subtle tradeoffs of foundation support for journalism?”): “Though it is often buried in the fine print of the masthead…many journals of opinion are themselves nonprofit, the better to attract foundation funding. That is true of MOTHER JONES.”
MOTHER JONES magazine claims to be a non-profit “Foundation for National Progress.” Yet MOTHER JONES magazine took in nearly $6 million in annual revenues in 2000, including $822,358 from the sale of advertising space and $176,140 from renting out its subscriber list. From this gross income of $6 million in 2000, MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progess then paid out the following salaries to its top alternative media executives:
1. MOTHER JONES magazine Editor-in-Chief Roger Cohn was paid an annual salary of $144,670;
2. MOTHER JONES magazine Publisher and Foundation for National Progress Board President Jay Haris–a former general manager of the Washington Post Company’s NEWSWEEK magazine’s Pacifica operations–was paid an annual salary of $144,379;
3. MOTHER JONES magazine Director of Sales & Marketing Eric Weiss was paid an annual salary of $105,004;
4. MOTHER JONES magazine Creative Director Jane Palecek was paid an annual salary of $88,197;
5. Foundation for National Progress Secretary/Treasurer and CEO Joan Catherine Braun was paid an annual salary of $85,453;
6. MOTHER JONES magazine Editor Eric Bates was paid an annual salary of $74,716; and
7. MOTHER JONES magazine Advertising Manager Eileen Ellis was paid an annual salary of $67,233; and
8. MOTHER JONES Art Director Caroline Joy was paid an annual salary of $61,187.
MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress also spent $247,000 on fund-raising in 2000; and its board of directors included Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, Kadima Foundation CHair Chara Schreyer, HKH Foundation director Harriet Barlow and MOTHER JONES magazine founder Adam Hochschild. Hochschild also has set up the Adam Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund, whose stated tax-exempt purpose is to “promote the charitable literary and educational purposes of Foundation for National Progress.” According to its 2000 report, the Adam Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund apparently did this by contributing $2.4 million worth of stock to MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress. As a result, $1,176,617 worth of Wal Mart Stores stock (19,082 shares) was apparently owned by MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress in 2001.
Besides receiving money from Bill Moyers’ Schumann Foundation and the Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund of one its own board members, another interesting connection to the world of Establishment foundations exists at MOTHER JONES magazine. In 1997, the wife of MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress board member Adam Hochschild–University of California-Berkeley Professor of Sociology Arlie Russell Hochschild–was given a $3 million grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation “to establish a Center for Working Families” at UC-Berkeley, which she now directs. Among the Establishment folks who presently sit on the board of trustees of the Sloan Foundation which funds UC-Berkeley Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild’s center is former Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall–who presently represents MIT on the board of trustess of the Pentagon’s weapons research think-tank: the Institute for Defense Analyses (www.ida.org). Other members of the Sloan Foundation board include former chairmen of the General Motors, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley corporate boards and two other MIT professors. In 1991, the wife of MOTHER JONES/Foundation for National Progress board member Hochschild also was apparently given a grant by the Ford Foundation.
So it’s probably not likely that many muckraking articles about either the Ford Foundation’s historic relationship to the CIA, Bill Moyers’ Schumann Foundation and Public Affairs TV Inc., the Sloan Foundation, the Institute for Defense Analyses, MIT or UC-Berkeley–or on what evidence has been dug up by 9/11 conspiracy journalists and researchers–will be published much by the MOTHER JONES magazine alternative media gatekeepers/censors.
to part 6…
Posted by:history lessonJanuary 20, 2009 6:40:07 PMRespond ^
25 years ago, MJ was one helluva muckraker mag, taking on everything and sparing no one.
These days, they seem more interrested in running safe stories that pretend to be investigating something, but never looking too deeply into what they’re investigating.
They’ve become more enamored of the money aspect of MJ as a marketing tool, than as an actual outfit digging deep into the dirt.
More’s the shame, as we already have enough of those rags polluting the MSM.