A Repealer-General?

Repealer-General

This is a truly statesman-like innovation, provoked by our governmental growth. We need a public official who has no responsibility except recommending laws and regulations to be repealed. Indeed, if we could invest the office with sufficient probity, I would like to see the gentleman given a sort of veto, which only a two-thirds majority could override.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste

The Washington Post has a story by Michelle Singetary about people who are, unbelievable as it may seem, using the Gulf spill to their own advantage: “The SEC and FINRA are warning investors about the classic ‘pump-and-dump’ practice. In this scheme, company officials, promoters and/or fraudsters will use blogs, e-mail or message boards to pump up the noise on a certain stock that typically is selling on the OTC Bulletin Board or Pink OTC Markets, formerly known as Pink Sheets. Both are electronic quotation systems that provide pricing and financial information for stocks sold over the counter.

“In the case of the BP spill, a firm may falsely claim it has a new technology to stop the spill or has a contract to help with the cleanup.”

“Gullible investors then buy the stock, creating demand and driving up the price. Gannon said when the promoters think the stock has hit its peak, they sell off their shares. Once the promoters stop hyping the stock, demand goes down -- along with the price. The promoters win. Naive investors lose.”

Any similarity between scam artists and our environmentalist ideologues is entirely noncoincidental.

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