"Bush is a crook" says Mr. Krugman

Great Debates
441

Scylla, I’ll accept that many of my characterizations of Bush can fairly be called detractions. I’ll proudly wear that particular mantle.

But I’ll answer your charges of “partisan bullshit” with a resounding “blow it out your ass.” I am a registered Democrat and a self-described liberal, neither of which are required to think ill of Bush ibn Bush and his cronies, and neither of which cause me to criticize anyone on the basis of their political party. My suspicions and objections to this man are based purely on his dubious past, his questionable character and his quite apparent and frequently demonstrated failings as a leader.

But it sure as more convenient to cry “partisan” at me then it is to continue to defend the Pres, aint it?

442

I’m not defending the Prez. We’ve been over this a couple of times. I don’t know if he did it.

What I do know is that you don’t have a case, and the great preponderance of evidence strongly suggests that not only didn’t he do it, but that he couldn’t of done it.

Your insistence on shady odors that you percieve as somehow construing guilt as being worthy of dignifying an investigation or worthy of casting aspersions lend themselves to few other interpretations than delusional partisan wish fulfillment.

I’ve asked a specific question three times. I have no desire to hound you on the issue, as your reluctance to answer suffices to show my point.

Boil away the partisan rhetoric and there’s precious little to back up the allegations against Bush re: Harkens

443

Now comes Brother Scylla, tireless palladin of the privileged, champion of the gated community, holding the reeking and unwashed partisan barbarians at bay…

He holds aloft the Four Sacred Principles of the Unindictable!

The SEC has investigated, he cries out! Those feral fiscal ferrets, dove headlong into several long-distance phone calls, and a number of memos! Why, at one point, they even contemplated actually questioning Jr. his very own self!

A sight that should gladden the heart! The son of a sitting President is accorded the same ferocious and unrelenting investigation that any other ordinary millionaire would receive! And they have returned the Verdict Irreversible: “Unindictable!”

But lo! Behold the truculent troglodytes! “Not enough” they cry out! “Show us the documents, show us the minutes, show us the proof!” As if the pristine virtues of the Vestal SEC were inadequate! They slither up to hiss that perhaps power and privilege might have some bearing on the matter! Oh, tempora Oh, mores! Perhaps, they imply, the scales of impartial SEC justice are not as balanced as they might be, perhaps the investigation was less than relentless. And in their blasphemy they dare to suggest that they should be permitted to place their grubby mitts upon the Sacred Documents!

They are immune to the wonder of it! Behold, Un-Curious George, who skipped playfully across a reeking swamp of information, and his Mary Janes remained unmuddied, his purity of ignorance unassailable. This is little short of miraculous, and yet the partisans, whose socks reek of Kmart, refuse to admit the purity of the Appointed One.

And so, once again into the breach, dear friends, once again! Brother Scylla goes forth, into the fray, heedless of the ghosts of the 7th Cavalry whispering of doom…. He raises again the mighty sword Exculpator

"Unindictable!!"

444

Scylla, I meant nothing but a cheeky compliment when I called you a “spinmeister.” I meant that I think you’re doing a very good job of casting the situation in the best possible light.

There is such a thing as a partisan defense as well as partisan denial. I think in this case it’s evident that we’ve got both of these.

445

Darn, I garbled that something awful. Re-take:

There is such a thing as a partisan defense as well as a partisan offense.

How’s that? :slight_smile:

446

Oh bullshit! You’re playing the same game here you played with elucidator; you’re asking for proof of guilt as support for a suspicion of guilt.

Your question, in its latest phrasing, is: “What in those newly revealed documents has caused you to say the Bush had foreknowledge of a devaluation?”

My answer, which you really didn’t need, as your question assumes a position I’ve not taken (as you no doubt are fully aware) is this:

My comment concerned Bush’s “selling into good news” characterization of his sale of Harken stock. My exact words, as seen on this very page (that scroll bar suggestion I made to erl earlier is still applicable), were:

My reason for assigning a “not insignificant” probability is the increasing documentation that Mr. Bush was much more heavily aware of and involved in Harken’s management than you’ve been asserting (without any evidence) throughout this thread, combined with his ties to the very top of the SEC. The circumstances make me doubt, vehemently, his “good news” spin.

It’s been my position all along, presented quite consistently in this thread, that Bush didn’t care whether the stock would retain its value once he sold it, and didn’t care how it got that value.

The only opinion I’ve been forced to revise has been my early consideration that Bush “probably” knew nothing about the nature of Aloha or the real state of Harken. As the documents published by CPI abundantly show, that’s not very likely.

You can take your “partisan rhetoric” comment. Put it someplace useful.

447

“Hard of reading”

That’s so good, its deserving of my ultimate compliment.

I’m going to steal it.

448

I wouldn’t say my defense is partisan, though I am a Republican.

I happen to know an awful lot about how rule 144 sales work and how corporations work as part of my career.

Most people don’t. Xeno and Elucidator certainly don’t.

I’m professionally pissed off at these allegations because they demonstrate incompetance, and ignorance, and use them as a weapon.

The fact is that a careful examination of what happened shows nothing particularly surprising or suspicious. The whole thing is innocuous.

Faced with that realization we get nothing but empty rhetoric. I mean look at elucidator’s last post. Fucking ridiculous.

449

xeno:

Yeah, I know that’s what you said. That’s why I quoted it when I asked the first time.

So, what’s up with that “not insignificant probability that he knew there would be a downward adjustment in the earnings statement?”

I take it of course that you are referring to the not insignificant possibility that Bush was capable of time travel, or mystical prescience.

Those seem to me the only two possibilites for Bush knowing about the earnings restatement, seeing as neither the SEC nor the executive committee knew at the time that that would be the ultimate outcome of the Aloha debacle…

Please explain how it is a not insignificant possibility that Bush was in posession of information which doesn’t seem to have existed at the time.

Because the possibiltiy seems pretty damn insignificant to me.

And, didn’t we cover this a couple of pages ago?

450

You were more imaginative earlier in this thread.

451

Scylla, your entire defense consists of A) Demanding proof of suspicion and B) The usual partisan nonsense of ‘business as usual.’

Forgive me if I find the empty rhetoric to be yours. I rather suspect Elucidator is amusing himself after rather than go insane attempting to counter your foolish and transparently partisan blather.

Perhaps if you admitted when you were wrong – it only hurts for a minute – this thread might die its long overdue death.

And by the way the word is “INCOMPETENCE.” Here’s a fresh shovel to dig yourself out of the irony.

452

Indeed.

It’s always fun. Let’s see what we have:

By some means of which we can only speculate (and perhaps investigate,) we will assume that Bush becomes aware of the structure of the Aloha transaction and that IMR is basically a couple of Harken insiders, despite all the evidence and logic that points against this knowledge.

Seeing this happening, Bush uses his Yale MBA (which combines the knowledge base of a CPA, Corporate Lawyer, and Sec Investigator,) does a quick calculation and determines that if this transaction goes through it will trigger an SEC investigation and the SEC will decide to force Harken to restate its quarter.

Now the Rangers purchase seems to have been in the works for some time, and we must assume that Bush was going to continue to hold the Harken stock even though he was buying the Rangers and his counselors were telling him to get liquid, and he pretty desperately needed the cash. Fortunately it is a simple thing for him to follow his advisors’ advice and take advantage of the fact that he desperately needs money so that he can shield his illegal insider trade from suspicion.

Since he’s liquidating most of his stock holdings nobody will notice if he liquidates Harken as well since it will appear entirely innocuous compared with his other activities.
(Either that or he engineered the whole Rangers thing to cover up the fact that he was dumping his stock.)

To further cover his actions he engages in conspiracy with Harken’s CEO and legal counsel and gets written and verbal opinions and permission to sell his stock so informing him that he was not in posession of any material nonpublic information (either that, or they simply didn’t know about Bush’s amazing powers of analysis which allowed him to accurately foresee the coming debacle when no one else could.)

Having gotten permission he files the proper form with the SEC and dumps his stock.

A month and a half later Harken announces it’s earnings. The stock goes through a quick hiccup that afternoon and shortly recovers on a favorable Forbes article and the possibility of a Bahrain contract.

This hiccup and Bush’s earlier trade triggers an SEC investigation. Even though it is brutally quashed, repressed and covered up by Bush’s SEC cronies it still lasts almost a year, or maybe its longevity was maybe a part of the coverup, or conspiracy or something.

(If there was a conspiracy to cover this up why was there this investigation? I seem to have forgotten? Why did it last so long if it was peremptorary?)

Anyway, this conspiracy or coverup or whatever with the SEC decides to use the fact that the stock didn’t react to the news as well as a professional analyst’s opinion that the news was “not significant” as their excuse to pretend that the information was not well… significant. In other words they use the lack of significance of the news as a blatant attempt to cover up it’s lack of significance “It’s so Machiavellian, nobody’ll ever guess,” they chuckle.

(It’s either that or we have to assume Bush engineered the Bahrain situation and the Forbes article to prop up the stock to cover up the illegal nature of his sale in advance thus adding market manipulation to his list evil crimes. This of course begs the question of why did he need to sell if he was capable of propping the stock up, but we won’t go there)

They also don’t suspect Bush’s amazing powers of financial analysis (or else they give it the wink,) and use the evidence that the information didn’t exist at the time of the sale as a blatant cover up to make people think the information didn’t exist at the time of the sale.

In thus fashion Bush is clearly in posession of material nopublic infornmation, is found to have acted on it, as well as engaging in massive conspiracy and fraud with several corporations, publications, and government agencies, as well as demonstrating amazing powers of deduction ingrained into his undeserving head thanks to his privileged education.

So, is it this possibility you care to investigate? Are these the grounds under which you wish to claim you smell a stink?

Doubtless, you will consider this a strawmen but seeing as you haven’t presented an argument or a scenario that covers the facts creating guilt for Bush, thus justifying an investigation, this is all I can come up with.

Personally, I think the time travel thing or mystical powers thing is a better bet, as even in this scenario you have to credit Bush with amazing insight.

Or, if you don’t like it, please give me another scenario.
I’ll even give up on likely. I’d just like to see a scenario from you under which it is somewho possible that Bush posessed material nonpublic information and acted on it.

Can you just come up with something possible to prove that you are not completely full of partisan shit?

453

Scylla, I realize you think your best option here is to keep acting as if this is all about the specific insider trading insinuation, and nothing else. But your act is getting boring.

I’ve spoken at fair length in this thread about the relevance to the American public of Bush’s dealings at Harken. Certainly, the Harken stuff is of far less relevance than Bush’s personally enriching involvement with the Texas Rangers (with quite a bit of help from local taxpayers), and his even more personally enriching gig as Texas governor. But it is relevant.

I welcome the public examination of Mr. Bush’s past leadership performance. I understand that other reasonable people can see that performance differently than I do. But I find it unlikely that most reasonable people, looking at the fortunes of Citizen Bush from failing businessman to Board of Directors at Harken to timely sale of over half a million dollars of Harken stock would not find all this more than a little serendipitous. I think it would be baffling if most of those reasonable people, seeing the $12 Million “voluntary” gift of Rangers’ interest to sitting Gov. Bush would fail to think “this is a large conflict of interest”. I would find it equally mystifying if these same reasonable people, considering the “privatization” of $9 Billion of UT assets, hiding their uses from taxpayer examination, would not think “this is antidemocratic, and unaccountable governance”. And I would be amazed were these reasonable people not inclined to take a closer look at what President Bush’s administration is doing at present. And having taken such a look, I have severe doubts that most reasonable people would be enthusiastic over a second Bush term.

The more I get to know this President, the more he becomes my “second favorite” candidate for '04. (The favorite being whoever runs against him.)

So, yes, my interest in an investigation is prompted in large part because I am anti George W. Bush. Not because he’s a Republican, or because he’s a conservative. It’s because, like Krugman, I believe he is a crook.

As I said earlier, the dogs of the press are running on the scent. But I believe even an official investigation is justified in the current context. I don’t believe an official investigation is absolutely necessary, however, as long as unofficial investigations continue. I would recommend nothing more than public release of all relevant documents by the White House.

I’m not interested in proving anything to you. I leave it to other observers to make their own judgement over my political objectivity. The plain fact is, I loathe Mr. Bush purely on the basis of his own performance and character. There are quite a few conservatives I would not be displeased to call “President”. And there are more than a few liberals I would be even harsher with than I’ve been with Bush.

So take any further “partisan” shots to the Pit and I’ll respond. I’m done with you here, as I find no further value in maintaining a civil tone with you. (It’s amazing how, in the space of a few pages, you’ve gone from “I appreciate your valid points, xeno” to “you’re a partisan shit peddler”. How quickly I must have turned, eh?)

454

Yup, pretty quickly.

455

Oh, but if you’re curious why:

The Krugman article goes into detail about Harken. That’s what these 10 pages have been about. I’m not interested in defending Bush about the rest.

Up to a page or two ago you seemed to agree with the logic that Bush did not commit illegal insider trading.

Suddenly you’ve changed your mind based on those new documents and seem to consider that there’s a “significant possibility” he was aware of harkens coming restatement.

Your refusal to back it up, or even show that what you claim is possible is unreasonable. You claim something is true, but absolutely refuse to show how it could have possibly occured.

My strong suspicion is because you know how outlandish and ridiculous such a scenario will look.

Carl Sagan makes a great example of such stances in his The Demon haunted world in which a person claims there is an invisible flying dragon in his garage. An assertion backed up solely by its lack of evidence.

Such a stance is either simply stubborn, or partisan.

456

Wrong. A “not insignificant probability”. IOW, a probability which bears a less cursory examination than that given by the SEC.

We’ve seen that Bush was much more involved in the inner workings of Harken than we (the thread participants) theorized at the outset of this thread. We’ve established that Bush had familiar ties to the upper levels of the SEC. We’ve noted the rather close relationship Citizen Bush had to the sitting PoTUS at the time. All of this establishes a “not insignificant probability” that Bush could have had material insider knowledge pertaining to the eminent devaluation of Harken stock.

(This sort of rhetorical tripe is what makes you such an enormous boor, Scylla.) Carl had a lot to say in that work about self-delusion. If we were talking about a scientific theory, I’m sure Carl would point out that the “inside information” theory is not falsifiable.

But we’re not talking about science, or trying to explain any natural phenomena. We’re talking about the actions of a businessman who now represents the entire Executive branch of our government; actions which resemble in many significant ways the more recent actions of other businessmen who’ve been roundly condemned, and the consequences of which have revealed to the public a need for real reform.

It is neither unreasonable nor self-delusional to look inside a garage that has smoke pouring out of it. And one needs theorize no dragons to justify one’s interest.

457

Not to imply that Citizen Bush’s actions in 1990 have “revealed a need for reform.”

I should have said: “…actions which resemble in many significant ways the more recent actions of other businessmen who’ve been roundly condemned, and whose actions have revealed to the public a need for real reform.”

458

First off, Bush’s involvement is about what a reasonably informed person would expect from an outside director on the audit committee. I’m certainly not surprised.

The rest of what you have is some weak associations that don’t support your thesis.

They don’t support your thesis in the least unless you assume conspiracy (and I see that you’ve wisely ommitted making such an allegation.)

Unless you’re willing to posit conspiracy, your conclusion doesn’t follow. Are you?

The next problem is the one of materiality. How do you overcome the SEC’s position paper that information regarding the coming devaluation of Harken was not material?

The next problem is how do you overcome the fact that the information in question doesn’t seem to have been in existence at the time Bush did his sale?

How do you overcome Bush’s seeking legal counsel and management counsel prior to his sale to ensure that he was not in posession of information that would make his sale illegal?
These are not new problems that I’m bringing up Xenophon. I’ve been putting them out there just about every other post. It seems to me that you’re simply ignoring them and continuing with a bald assertion. It’s quite frustrating.

I have a choice of assuming that partisan preference is clouding your judgement or that you’re being deliberately disingenuous. I prefer partisan.

Neither is the dragon. My point exactly. But it’s about as close as you can get.

So, you’re partisan, and I’m a boor who can stick it. Big whoop.

459

What conclusion is that? (Please use my actual words, in context, this time.)

So far, my conclusion has been that the probability of Bush’s knowledge of impending devaluation is not insignificant. Means, motivation and method have not been proven, and I’ve made no assertions that they have been. I’ve pointed out that the means existed, in far greater proportion for Mr. Bush than for most of his colleagues and certainly for most businessmen in general. Motivation is a given, and method can only be theorized but cannot be shown without investigation. “Conspiracy” need not be the preferred theory. Simple incompetence combined with cronyism would do it.

Personally, I’ve made NO CONCLUSION regarding the trade, so I don’t have a preferred theory. Personally, I don’t think he’s indictable. But, as you would say, big whoop.

What bald assertion is that? (Please use my actual words, in context, this time.) I’d like the specific assertion I’ve made that you think you’re refuting.

Still incorrect. You’ve provided huge amounts of evidence to support your own boorishness, but absolutely nothing to support the charge that my criticisms of Bush are partisan.

Big whoop indeed.

460

And you ignore it all again:

How do you credit calling it a significant possibility that Bush could have posessed material nonpublic information based on cronyism, when the information in question was neither in existence, nor for that matter material according to the SEC?

It doesn’t look significant to me

[Inigo Montoya] I do not think that word means what you think it does[/Inigo Montoya]