Agora Inc.'s Lila Rajiva Lies at The Daily Reckoning
http://wolfblitzzer0.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html
Lila at The Daily Reckoning
I’ve
updated and added links to this page several times. Many of the links are to
stock message-boards rather than to mainstream articles, because I believe the
discussion around these articles is just as important as the original articles
and because the story of the financial scandal first broke on threads like
these, not in the mainstream.
I’ve
noted some of my changes and the time when I made them, but not all, because the
piece becomes almost unreadable with so many notes and corrections added.
Suffice
to say, it’s a work in progress and I will continue to add new information and
links as I see fit.
______________________________
Re: Agora
I
left Agora over what I saw as unethical behavior toward
me, including publication of copyrighted material under other people’s names
without my permission and mis-attribution of my work.
Mr.
Bonner has since extended me a written apology for errors made in
promotion.
Previously
( in 2007), he apologized verbally for what happened. He also wrote me a
recommendation that I’ve never used.
After
leaving, I did some research on the company’s history that led to posts on the
questionable past of a senior figure at the company, on the strident marketing
hype in one of its newsletters, and on the conviction of that newsletter’s publisher by the
SEC.
I
also blogged on the appearance of former CIA chief William Colby’s name on
an Agora newsletter and Agora’s
association with leading newsman of the British establishment, Lord
Rees-Mogg.
Some
of my findings were then lifted from my blog by the very people who now
criticize me for “covering up” for Agora.
At
this point, I’ve chosen not to post much more on the subject, beyond what’s
necessary to defend my reputation, as I don’t believe that my posting on it can
really help one way or other. My one-time employment by Agora would make a certain kind of critic always
think I was “covering” for them. Another kind of critic would always suspect me
of being biased against them.
There
are also many serious legal issues involved, of which the average alternative
blogger knows nothing and usually doesn’t care to learn.
That’s
in line with the truly pathetic standards of modern journalism/blogging, where
personal vilification, plagiarism, and outright lies are the order of the
day.
So
we have the sterile and truth-less world of the corporate media on one hand, and
then there’s the irresponsible fact-less hysteria of the alternative
press.
Between
these two, the mere writer is road-kill…
Libels
About Me Repeated By Tony Ryals Since 2007
1.
I am a penny stock “fraudster”
1.
False. The truth is I have never sold a stock or a penny-stock ever. Any
investment advice I ever gave professionally can be found in notes in the Daily Reckoning that can be found below. I edited the Daily Reckoning column, did some real estate research
(looking for property that Mr. Bonner might be interested in purchasing).
researched real estate and market conditions, and wrote ONE investment report on
Goldman Sachs (which led to this article in Money Week).
Most
of my time was spent on writing and editing “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.” I was
hired for 4 hours PT work in January 2007 and signed a book contract the
following summer (May 2007). Do you really think that I could have found time
to tout stocks when I was editing 4 hours per day, researching and co-writing
the book (that was originally 1000 pages before it was cut down).
All
in exactly one year flat, while writing my own articles, traveling around the
world with a laptop, house-hunting for myself and doing my own (very small time)
trading? There are not enough hours in the day for me to have been touting
stocks or running any newsletter, with all that.
Ryals is fabricating this out of whole
cloth.
2.
I have a George Tenet connection.
2.
False. I have never met, spoken to, or even seen George Tenet in my life. I
don’t think I’ve even read or written much about him. Senior people at Agora Inc. might know him. How does it follow that
I know him? Bogus, rubbish. I was atAgora from January 2006 - October 2007 and wrote
the book from May 2007 - August 2007. In other words, I was there solely for the
purpose of writing, not selling stocks and that is a documented fact.
3.
I am an illegal alien.
3.
False. I’m an American citizen and have been one for over 15 years. My money is
earned and spent in this country. My education dollars were spent here. My
relatives live here. Ryals has a lot of nerve to use this term since he
doesn’t live here anymore nor has he apparently done anything for the country
for the last several years, except attack companies on stock-boards, while
dragging his personal antipathies into third-hand political diatribes hatched at
long distance in that famous haven of progressive sentiment and judicial
probity, Guatemala.
4.
I “posed” as a far-left progressive when writing “The Language of Empire” and
then revealed myself as a far-right extremist in my second book.
4.
False. Anyone who’s read my first book will see it is far from being the work
of a “bleeding-heart” leftist or a diatribe against America, not withstanding
the blurbs (collected by my publisher) from left-wing writers. It is in fact
quite scholarly and even-handed and is most concerned with mass-control
techniques used by the state. It is was actually intended to be a college text,
which it is.
My
second book is equally non-partisan. I object to rigid ideological divisions and
in both books have described such divisions as a technique of state-control.
Apparently, Ryals lacks the intellectual ability to
distinguish that considered position from opportunism.
My
positions on the police state, on imperial wars, on torture, and on financial
crime have stayed the same since I began writing. I have repeatedly expressed my
differences from standard left-wing sites like Counterpunch, as well as from
standard right-wing libertarian sites like Cato and Lew Rockwell.
The
writing closest to my thinking comes from the Independent Institute.
For
example, I have openly criticized the more controversial writing on LRC, by
Walter Block, Herman Hoppe, and Stephan Kinsella, for faulty reasoning. To
my mind, the word
“extremism” - often applied to these writers - has become a propaganda term. I
couldn’t care less how “extreme” they are. I do care that they don’t seem to
reason all that closely, at least in the pieces of theirs I’ve read.
5.
I am paid by Agora Inc. to write my blog.
5.
False. My contract on the book was with John Wiley and the only thing Agora Inc. paid for was my editorial and
research/PR work for Mr. Bonner, while I was writing the book. I stopped being
paid by them shortly after the book was published. While I worked for them, I
was never a full-time employee and I was mostly out of the country while the
book was being written. I have never been paid by Agora to write anything since the book came
out.
Take
a look at what’s on my blog. Do you think any company that wants to enter the
mainstream financial world would pay me to write the kind of stuff I do?
6.
My boss was James Dale Davidson, notorious for front-running stocks and
promoting the “Vince Foster was murdered” theory on various right-wing
sites.
6.
False. Davidson had been bought out of Agora Inc. by the time I was hired (Dec 2005- Jan
2006), so neither directly nor indirectly was he ever a supervisor or boss in
any way, shape, or form. I have never corresponded with him or seen him. In
fact, I first heard of him from Ryals who, when I was hired, asked me to ask if he
was still there. I did and was told he wasn’t.
This
is Ryals’ broad-brush smear-by-numbers technique. He hates Davidson,
because he (Ryals)
bought Endovasc on the recommendation of Davidson and lost his inheritance in
it. Therefore, anyone even remotely associated with Agora, which
Davidson originally formed, must be equally hate-worthy. This is insanity, not
truth-telling.
What’s
more, if you read up a bit more on Endovasc and Ryals’
investment in it, you’ll find that Ryals accusations against Davidson, at least in
the matter of Endovasc, are ill-founded or confused. One businessman who analyzed the story came to the conclusion that Ryals lost his money through his own stupidity and
that Endovasc was done to death by naked short-selling and not pump-and-dump. Be
that as it may, if you throw your entire inheritance into a get-rich-quick
scheme of some kind (what else is dumping money into a biotech stock in hopes of
a quick surge in price?), you share at least 50 percent of the responsibility if
you lose it. Instead of wising up, Ryals then starts putting together two and two
from various half-digested articles by legitimate financial journalists and
comes up with eleven thousand-and-one:
Google,
Charles Schwab, Davidson, Wikipedia, LOM, Lord Rees-Mogg, Lila Rajiva,
James Angel, Patrick Byrne, Brent Baker, Porter Stansberry, Raging Bull, David
Marchant, Walter Block, Ron Paul, the Pentagon shooter, the crotch-bomber,
Christopher Cox, Asra Nomani, Gordon Duff, Sibel Edmonds, Alex Jones, Lew
Rockwell, Bill Bonner, Judd Bagley, Michael Zwebner, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes,
Gary Weiss’ wife, James Quinn, Bud Burrell, J. Christoph Amberger, Mark
Mitchell, the Stasi, RAW, William Colby, the SEC, Canadian regulators, the
Malaysian stock exchange and a further cast of thousands, have all
been conspiring to defraud him..and other petty investors…through an elaborate
CIA-run penny-stock operation that’s concealed by a fiendishly clever
smoke-screen about naked-shorting by the big banks.
As
a matter of fact, some of the names above (like LOM) are indeed connected to
fraud (see Patrick Byrne’s Deep Capture). But not the way Ryals spins it.
7.
I am “covering up” for Agora, Byrne,
the government, the CIA, etc. in some way.
7.
False. Actually, Ryals’
knowledge about Goldcor and other matters is is taken from my
site. Apparently, despite obsessing about Agora from 2002 onward (some nine years of
non-stop fixation), he was unable to do the simple research that would have
pulled up the information.
Far
from being some deep, dark secret, some of Mr. Masterson’s past history is
available on a forum debating the merits of one of Agora’s
related outfits. There are multiple links there referencing Masterson, and those
links have been up for several years. They are common knowledge among insiders
at the company. All that was needed was some deeper digging and connection of
dots. That I supplied, because I had the background knowledge to know what I was
looking for.
My
interest was less in Mr. Masterson as it was in Joel Nadel, his
mentor, who might (or might not) have a larger significance in the bigger
financial picture. The issue wouldn’t even have come into the ambit of my
blogging had it not coincided with the Madoff story, as well as elements of the
9-11 story.
I
did not feel that I was the appropriate person to address the issue, precisely
because I am an immigrant and NOT related to intelligence. I felt it was better
some native-born American outfit working with government (such as Deep Capture)
take a look at it. That is quite an appropriate way to proceed and has nothing
to do with covering up. Any sane person would realize that an immigrant cannot
write exposes about national security-related issues in their adopted country
without running significant professional and personal risks. Aside from anything
else, they would lack credibility and become vulnerable to accusations of spying
or propagandizing themselves.
Since
I put up those links in 2009, Agora has changed its web-page to incorporate that
information, which suggests both that my information was accurate and that its
substance does not directly reflect on them, i.e., Agora Inc. itself had nothing to do with Goldcor.
8.
I delete posts on my blog to cover up for people.
8.
False. In the first place, I don’t usually delete posts. I might modify them or
make them private, if I think circumstances warrant it. That is well within my
rights. What circumstances? Well, if I feel someone, say a cyber-stalking poseur
in Guatemala, is using my own writing to trash and flame me, for instance. Why
on earth should I be obliged to arm my detractors with my own hard-won insights
so they can be turned against me, for no other reason but malice?
9.
I “invited” Ryals to come down to Agora’s office
in Baltimore.
9.
Another flat lie. I was NOT employed at Agora at the time I wrote to Mr. Ryals, so
I could scarcely invite him there.
Here
are the SUM TOTAL (5 ) of my emails to him. I challenge him to publish any email
from me where I invite him to Baltimore in 2005. He has intentionally confused
something from someone else’s email to mine and blamed it on me, out of sheer
malice. And he has used Stansberry’s name in conjunction with mine, to smear
me.
Here
are my original emails to him. The first one asks about his allegations on the
web. I had not yet been hired byAgora and I was worried about the allegations I’d
read on the web and how it might affect my credibility, especially since I was
blogging about finance by that time (see “Playing Monopoly in Charm City” June
2005, Dissident Voice).
IN
ORDER OF WRITING, MY EMAILS TO RYALS:
(All
my emails were published without my permission by Ryals,
without any attempt to straighten out any of his misconceptions before hand.
I’ve asked various forums to remove his false statements a number of times, as
they are actionable libels. But most websites in the US do not take down
material without a court order or a notice of copyright infringement. I used the
latter to get my emails removed (not that there was anything untoward in them),
but simply on principle, since Ryals hadn’t made any attempt to get at the truth
of what had happened and was simply fabricating things to support his attacks on
me.
You
might notice that some of my emails have been deleted from the web, but if you
compare the dates of these deleted mails, you’ll see they tally exactly with the
emails below.
I
challenge Mr. Ryals to produce ANY email where I have invited
him to Baltimore. It is an out and out lie.
Because
many of the links Ryals pastes into his sites are links from
reputable journalists, they do contain many interesting facts that warrant
exploration.
However, Ryals’
explanations of them is completely irresponsible, even insane, at times.
Gordon
Duff volunteers casually that he has “had George Tenet on speed-dial for some
years,” and that becomes “Duff is a CIA agent.” I work for Agora, so I
must be CIA too.
How
I can be CIA AND an illegal alien AND on Agora’s
payroll AND a stock-broker, he fails to explain.
1.
October 21, 2005
—–
Original Message —–
From: “Lila Rajiva” <lrajiva@hotmail.com>
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:25:56 +0000
From: “Lila Rajiva” <lrajiva@hotmail.com>
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:25:56 +0000
>
Dear Mr. Ryall,
>
> I read with interest your articles on the net regarding Agora
> Publishing and the stock ventures of the founder, James Dale
> Davidson. However, I was led to believe that Bill Bonner a
> well-known copywriter and author is the founder. Can you please
> clarify this as I have had some dealings with the latter gentleman
> and am concerned about such connections. Could it be that you are
> mistaken in your accusations?
>
> Sincerely
> Lila Rajiva
>
> I read with interest your articles on the net regarding Agora
> Publishing and the stock ventures of the founder, James Dale
> Davidson. However, I was led to believe that Bill Bonner a
> well-known copywriter and author is the founder. Can you please
> clarify this as I have had some dealings with the latter gentleman
> and am concerned about such connections. Could it be that you are
> mistaken in your accusations?
>
> Sincerely
> Lila Rajiva
EMAIL
TWO:
October
27, 2005
From:
“Lila Rajiva”
<lrajiva@hotmail.com>
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 02:19:44 +0000
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 02:19:44 +0000
>>
Dear Mr. Ryals,
>
> I did speak to Mr. Bonner about Porter Stansberry. He was very
> forthcoming and adhered to the position that he was not guilty of
> any legal wrong doing, such as pump and dump.
>
> He seemed a very open and sincere individual so I am a bit puzzled.
> It’s quite possible that some of his associates are involved in
> things he is not aware of.
>
> Or that they were only inexperienced or needlessly zealous, which
> was unfortunate, but may not be illegal.
>
> Do let me know if you come across anything else.
>
> Lila Rajiva
>
>
> I did speak to Mr. Bonner about Porter Stansberry. He was very
> forthcoming and adhered to the position that he was not guilty of
> any legal wrong doing, such as pump and dump.
>
> He seemed a very open and sincere individual so I am a bit puzzled.
> It’s quite possible that some of his associates are involved in
> things he is not aware of.
>
> Or that they were only inexperienced or needlessly zealous, which
> was unfortunate, but may not be illegal.
>
> Do let me know if you come across anything else.
>
> Lila Rajiva
>
EMAIL
THREE
October
27, 2011:
From:
“Lila Rajiva”
<lrajiva@hotmail.com>
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:17:44 +0000
> Mr. Ryals,
>
> I’ll keep this in mind. Thanks.
>
> Regards.
> Lila Rajiva
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:17:44 +0000
> Mr. Ryals,
>
> I’ll keep this in mind. Thanks.
>
> Regards.
> Lila Rajiva
EMAIL
FOUR
October
28, 2011:
From:
“Lila Rajiva”
<lrajiva@hotmail.com>
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:32:52 +0000
To: endoscam@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Re Agora and Davidson
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:32:52 +0000
>
Dear Mr. Ryals:
>
> Thank you for all this information. I will certainly keep it in
> mind. I plan to work for Mr. Bonner only in a limited way and with
> nothing to do with his stock activities or selling. I am a writer
> and and planning on working on a book with him that has nothing to
> do with finances.
>
> I appreciate this information and do thank you for it. But I am not
> in a position to ascertain the truth of it and don’t have the time
> as well. I hope that you will be able to recoup your losses. I
> sincerely feel for you about that as I suffered similar losses
> through unscrupulous individuals.
>
> Kind regards
> Lila Rajiva
>
> Thank you for all this information. I will certainly keep it in
> mind. I plan to work for Mr. Bonner only in a limited way and with
> nothing to do with his stock activities or selling. I am a writer
> and and planning on working on a book with him that has nothing to
> do with finances.
>
> I appreciate this information and do thank you for it. But I am not
> in a position to ascertain the truth of it and don’t have the time
> as well. I hope that you will be able to recoup your losses. I
> sincerely feel for you about that as I suffered similar losses
> through unscrupulous individuals.
>
> Kind regards
> Lila Rajiva
I
was hired to work at Agora between November, 2005 and January,
2006.
During
that time, I was also traveling and promoting my first book and working on an
article for another book (”One of the Guys,” Seal Press). I was also getting
ready to go abroad. In fact, I was out of the country for most of 2006. That
too is well-documented, from official and personal records.
What
could I have to do with things going on in Baltimore that year? Nothing.
More
sliming by Ryals.
In
2007, after difficulties over promotion and attribution of the book which was
released in 2007, I decided to leave. By that time, I’d had to research dozens
of pieces to find out who wrote what in the Daily Reckoning columns, some of which were used for Mr.
Bonner’s part of the book. That led to research into previous Agora books. The company’s somewhat loose
attitude toward attribution had me worried that I might have incorporated
material that was actually written by some previous co-author who hadn’t been
fully attributed. Going back into Agora’s
history, I then saw some articles and statements showing that Mr. Davidson had
been involved as recently as 2004.
This
led me to think about what Tony Ryals had written to me about Davidson, and it led
me to drop a note to him in 2007. At that point, seeing my book and my pieces in
support of Ron Paul, Ryals flew into a rage and started attacking me as
a “stock fraud,” “con artist,” and “bimbo,” all over the web, even though I
wrote back to him at length explaining that I’d never written any newsletters
there or sold stocks, beyond a few investment notes that you can read
below.
The
only investment report I wrote was one in 2006, recommending that people sell
Goldman Sachs. That was the prototype of all the fashionable “Short Goldman”
political and financial columns being tossed around today. Writing that in 2006
was a whole different ball game.
[To
give credit where it's due, it was not my idea to turn the Goldman research into
an investment report. I was actually researching Goldman for "Mobs," when I was
in Argentina. I mentioned this to Mr. Bonner, who was also suspicious of
Goldman's trading success. I recall that he asked about it to Kevin Kerr, an
excellent trader who used to work atAgora, and
Kerr was suspicious too.
Around
that time, Mr. Bonner was also trying to get me to do more interesting work than
editing and he suggested I write up my research as an investment report on
Goldman Sachs. This I did and a part of it was published as a cover story
on Agora affiliate/subsidiary, Money Week, a
prestigious English business magazine. Later, the report was sold through
another newsletter, under someone else's name without my permission.
Apparently,
the assignment sparked off resentment against me in the company so that for most
of 2007-07, some individuals were intent on defaming me, undermining my work, or
otherwise making it difficult for me to continue. Nonetheless, I was offered a
position there (I refused it) and Mr. Bonner did write me a good testimonial,
even though I have also refused to use it, on principle.
Let
me be clear. I no longer feel a need to revisit this issue.
The
only reason I do so is because of the continuing malicious lies Ryals keeps publishing about me, at every turn,
with the clear intention of smearing me by association and thus discrediting my
work.
As
I mentioned before, Mr. Bonner did apologize for what happened in 2007 and
recently also written me an apology about a recent attribution issue. For me,
this is enough.
The
case is closed.
Lila
Rajiva
......
EMAIL
FIVE (AFTER I LEFT AGORA IN 2007)
| From: | Lila Rajiva (lrajiva@hotmail.com) |
| Sent: | Sun 12/02/07 6:33 PM |
| To: | william knowles (endoscam@lycos.com) |
.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P {padding:0px;} .ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage
{font-size:10pt;font-family:
Hi
-
I
had a correspondence once with you regarding Davidson. I wonder what happened to
your case?
EMAIL
SIX
(written
in response to Ryals attacking me viciously all over the web, and
then published by Ryals on the web without my permission and
retained there by Indymedia despite requests from me to take it down. In other
words, Indymedia supports the use of copyright theft AND malicious libel, as
long as the targets are not communists).
Re:
BFI Consulting,Mark Skousen,Lila Rajiva
By Lila Rajiva on 1/30/2008
1:20:04 PM
E-mail: lrajiva (at)
hotmail.com
Hi
Tony,
Yes I did say I wouldn't be involved in Agora's stock selling in 2005.
And guess, what. It's 2008 and I haven't been. I have never sold a
single stock for them.
As for Jim Davidson, I believe his association with Agora has been
terminated for some years and no one there defends him. The investment
advice that I've read in the Agora newsletters that I've followed has
been basically useful - and provided at very reasonable terms. Too bad
I haven't always followed it.
Do I have a problem with some of their "hard sell" language? Yes, I
do. And I expressed it to several people there quite vociferously and
incessantly. I think some of them became quite bored and annoyed with
me over it.
But not all of their advisories use those tactics. Many are quite
low-key and all of them do give you your money back.
In any case, the company is very free-wheeling and there are lots of
very different people doing very different things.
I decided at the time that it was unfair to tar everyone with the
mistakes of a few and chose to work on Mr. Bonner's Daily Reckoning
column as an idea person, research assistant, and editor from late
2005- mid 2007. And to write a book with him.
I decided that the good of bringing some political home truths to
people in the influential financial world far outweighed the bad of
possibly having people like yourself leap to wrong conclusions. In an
important election year, that was actually a no-brainer for me.
How is that wrong?
In 2005, when Mr. Bonner approached me about the book, he did indeed
intend it to be a pop sociology book and not financial. And most of
the book, even in its finished version, is about politics and history.
We added a financial and investment section later mainly because the
publisher needed that to sell the book, since finance is the field
where Mr. Bonner is best-known.
Besides, the investment advice Mr. Bonner gave in the book was
extremely general. Not was it necessarily what I think. In a joint
effort, it's not possible to always agree on all things. I think I
mention that in the preface to the book.
Funny thing is if you had followed his advice over the last couple of
years, you'd have doubled your money...
FYI, here's an account of how the book was written:
www.thehindubusinessline.com/
As for my qualifications, you're wrong there too. I have an
undergraduate degree in economics and history and did graduate work in
International Relations (MA)- where I read a healthy quantity of
economics. I currently contribute to the whackonomics column of the
Hindu, which, if you've ever read it, answers questions on finance and
economics from people in the field. I have also studied the market and
trading on my own for seven years. I think I can hold my own in
understanding how finance works in the real world. In any case, if you
read our book, you will see a large part of it is a debunking of the
notion of economics as a science like physics. We think a knowledge of
history and human psychology is more important. Since I have graduate
training in history, politics, and philosophy, I'm pretty well
qualified I think.
By the way, the year before I wrote the book about Abu Ghraib, I was
making (trying to make) my living as a swing trader...so my interest
in finance is quite long standing and preceded my social activism. I
see no conflict between the two, actually.
On your other accusations:
I was invited to speak at BFI Consulting's conference to promote
"Mobs, Messiahs and Markets." I wasn't going to talk about investments
but about how governments destroy savings. Had I chosen to speak about
anything to do with investment, it would have been about the global
real estate market, which I know quite well.
As for Dr.Mark Skousen, I have never met him personally, but he was
kind enough to blurb our book and point out errors in the MS. I owe
him gratitude at least for that. From what I know, he is an erudite
and accomplished author/teacher in the areas of economics and
philosophy.
I am also aware that he has worked with the CIA, but that is all I
know and I don't think you are right to draw any conclusions about me
from that. I hope you are not naive enough to believe that everyone
connected with the CIA routinely engages in water boarding on
weekends. It's a large, mostly bureaucratic organization.
The fact that I might have accepted an invitation to speak at the same
conference where Dr. Skousen was also speaking says nothing. I also
correspond with an Indian friend of (the late) Milton Friedman. I
suppose you would say that makes me complicit in South American
torture, as Naomi Klein seems to think. Actually, I consider Dr.
Friedman a statist and far from being libertarian. but I doubt that
even statist economics inevitably leads to a painful death.
Finally, my birth data is not on the Internet, because I don't give it
out. Put it down to the fragile egos of women over the age of thirty.
If there's anything else you'd like to know, please feel free to drop
me an email, instead of taking it to an Internet web page.
Yes I did say I wouldn't be involved in Agora's stock selling in 2005.
And guess, what. It's 2008 and I haven't been. I have never sold a
single stock for them.
As for Jim Davidson, I believe his association with Agora has been
terminated for some years and no one there defends him. The investment
advice that I've read in the Agora newsletters that I've followed has
been basically useful - and provided at very reasonable terms. Too bad
I haven't always followed it.
Do I have a problem with some of their "hard sell" language? Yes, I
do. And I expressed it to several people there quite vociferously and
incessantly. I think some of them became quite bored and annoyed with
me over it.
But not all of their advisories use those tactics. Many are quite
low-key and all of them do give you your money back.
In any case, the company is very free-wheeling and there are lots of
very different people doing very different things.
I decided at the time that it was unfair to tar everyone with the
mistakes of a few and chose to work on Mr. Bonner's Daily Reckoning
column as an idea person, research assistant, and editor from late
2005- mid 2007. And to write a book with him.
I decided that the good of bringing some political home truths to
people in the influential financial world far outweighed the bad of
possibly having people like yourself leap to wrong conclusions. In an
important election year, that was actually a no-brainer for me.
How is that wrong?
In 2005, when Mr. Bonner approached me about the book, he did indeed
intend it to be a pop sociology book and not financial. And most of
the book, even in its finished version, is about politics and history.
We added a financial and investment section later mainly because the
publisher needed that to sell the book, since finance is the field
where Mr. Bonner is best-known.
Besides, the investment advice Mr. Bonner gave in the book was
extremely general. Not was it necessarily what I think. In a joint
effort, it's not possible to always agree on all things. I think I
mention that in the preface to the book.
Funny thing is if you had followed his advice over the last couple of
years, you'd have doubled your money...
FYI, here's an account of how the book was written:
www.thehindubusinessline.com/
As for my qualifications, you're wrong there too. I have an
undergraduate degree in economics and history and did graduate work in
International Relations (MA)- where I read a healthy quantity of
economics. I currently contribute to the whackonomics column of the
Hindu, which, if you've ever read it, answers questions on finance and
economics from people in the field. I have also studied the market and
trading on my own for seven years. I think I can hold my own in
understanding how finance works in the real world. In any case, if you
read our book, you will see a large part of it is a debunking of the
notion of economics as a science like physics. We think a knowledge of
history and human psychology is more important. Since I have graduate
training in history, politics, and philosophy, I'm pretty well
qualified I think.
By the way, the year before I wrote the book about Abu Ghraib, I was
making (trying to make) my living as a swing trader...so my interest
in finance is quite long standing and preceded my social activism. I
see no conflict between the two, actually.
On your other accusations:
I was invited to speak at BFI Consulting's conference to promote
"Mobs, Messiahs and Markets." I wasn't going to talk about investments
but about how governments destroy savings. Had I chosen to speak about
anything to do with investment, it would have been about the global
real estate market, which I know quite well.
As for Dr.Mark Skousen, I have never met him personally, but he was
kind enough to blurb our book and point out errors in the MS. I owe
him gratitude at least for that. From what I know, he is an erudite
and accomplished author/teacher in the areas of economics and
philosophy.
I am also aware that he has worked with the CIA, but that is all I
know and I don't think you are right to draw any conclusions about me
from that. I hope you are not naive enough to believe that everyone
connected with the CIA routinely engages in water boarding on
weekends. It's a large, mostly bureaucratic organization.
The fact that I might have accepted an invitation to speak at the same
conference where Dr. Skousen was also speaking says nothing. I also
correspond with an Indian friend of (the late) Milton Friedman. I
suppose you would say that makes me complicit in South American
torture, as Naomi Klein seems to think. Actually, I consider Dr.
Friedman a statist and far from being libertarian. but I doubt that
even statist economics inevitably leads to a painful death.
Finally, my birth data is not on the Internet, because I don't give it
out. Put it down to the fragile egos of women over the age of thirty.
If there's anything else you'd like to know, please feel free to drop
me an email, instead of taking it to an Internet web page.
Kind
regards.
Lila Rajiva
Lila Rajiva
THAT
IS THE LAST EMAIL I EVER SENT HIM.
Now,
please check the number of times he has posted all over the net any time he
hears my name, even if it's from a third party. The figure runs into the scores,
even though a number of sites were ethical enough to take down his posts after I
explained the story. Even so, there is no forum on which he hasn't tried to
smear me or get into battle with the forum's owners to spread his lies.
Notice,
how his story keeps changing.
First,
Porter Stansberry invited him down to Baltimore; then, when he got angry with
me, it became Lila Rajiva and Porter
Stansberry.
First,
it was Mark Skousen who worked for the CIA (true enough) and then it became Lila Rajiva and Skousen
and Bill Bonner, who work for the CIA.
First,
it was Bud Burrell who threatened him (true enough); then it's Bud Burrell (whom
I don't know) and Lila Rajiva
who threatened him.
In
other words, he just adds the name of whoever he's angry with to whatever
allegation he is spewing.
Yet
these clear signs of either derangement or disinformation are ignored by
Indymedia, to whom truth doesn't matter as long as they can smear whoever they
see as their opponents (and I have no idea why they should consider me so, since
I am fairly anti-corporatist as well).
NOTE:
there is NOT ONE WORD in all these emails inviting him to Baltimore or to any
other Agora office anywhere.
To
be truthful, I originally didn't read what Ryals had to say in any great depth, because it
all sounded like the confused ranting of someone who was extremely upset.
Throughout 2006-07 I was much more involved in researching the housing bubble
fraud and tying together the story of Goldman Sachs so that, for me, the
pump-and-dump part of the story was much less interesting, as it was more
limited in scope.... or. so it seemed to me at the time.
Indeed,
the only reason I became interested again in what Ryals was saying was that during the promotion of
the book I began to become alarmed by the loose attitude of some (note, some)
editors/copywriters/publishers to factual accuracy, attribution, and related
copyright matters.
This
was one of the reasons I left.
About
a month later, I remembered what I'd read on the web and decided to find out
what happened to Ryals'
case. My email to him (a few polite noncommittal words) is the last email (see
above) I ever sent him.
That
was in 2008. And again, there's not a word in it inviting anyone
anywhere.
As
soon as Ryals got my mail, he went to my blog and noticed
I was supporting Ron Paul. This sent him into a wild rage and he began attacking
me, both at the blog and all over stock forums. And that has continued almost
non-stop for three and a half years, escalating to wilder and wilder
statements.
Update
6 (September 28, 2010)
I
just came across this site, which hosts some poems and essays from Ryals (see below). From appearances, it seems to
be legitimate and it gives some information about his motives and
background.
This
is what I get from it:
1. Ryals claims to be a small investor/stock trader,
who invested his inheritance through Charles Schwab in an investment (Endovasc)
sold by James Dale Davidson, and lost all his money. This seems to have been in
2001-2002.
He
has posted since then under multiple aliases on the Raging Bull message-board, a frequent haunt of paid
"bashers" who pose as cybervigilantes looking out for naive investors. In
reality, many of these so-called vigilantes have turned out to be in the pay of short-selling hedge-funds and their associates. Ryals might be one of them, or he might be posting
disinformation that helps them, or he might genuinely be a defrauded investor
who's driven himself a bit crazy over his loss. This is not to say that there
isn't some truth in what he alleges. But it is misconstrued and mangled to the
point that it actually constitutes a hindrance to anyone researching these
topics seriously.
2. Ryals also seems to have had a mental
illness/breakdown and been confined at some point. That's by his own admission.
This would account for the stream-of-consciousness
writing and magical thinking, as well as the emotional fixation that I've
noted.
3.
He seems to make his money from a small farming (coffee business) of some kind
in Guatemala (which is where his IP addresses originate). The outfit is called
Tostaduria, Antigua, and his writings on coffee, politics, finance, and other
things, are hosted by a budget travel site based in Central America. In earlier
versions, this site seemed to be very much on the left, as you would think if it
hosted Ryals'
writing. However, the home page on June
12, 2011, displayed an animus toward Islam ("gutter religion", "Mohammed (May
s*** be upon him") that's quite outlandish, especially coming from a
self-described progressive site. Notice also that Ryals,
though posing as some one on the
far left, actually supports establishment Democrats, rushing to the defense of Bill and Hillary
Clinton over the Vince Foster story, for instance.
Ryals'
unwavering position that there is no such thing as naked short-selling is in
fact a hallmark of the thinking of the financial establishment, which makes me suspect that someone or
other from that bloc subsidizes or feeds his rants in some way. It is
interesting, for example, that while he rants about my "connection" to Agora, he never mentions leading figures
currently working in that outfit.
Some
of them are well-connected to Wall
Street and thereby to the hedge-fund community. Elements in that community, as Deep Capture notes, are in business with organized crime and have a history of bashing people on the
net anonymously, in the most scurrilous terms. That suggests to me that some of
the anonymous libels of me (not those by Ryals,
but other comments) might well have come from someone with such connections.
See here for
a forum discussion, in which the
editor of Barron's complains about an alleged threat made to him, which turns
out to have been made in response to anonymous threats/slanders posted by the
cybervigilantes connected to the hedge-fund community.
Ryals is clearly in touch with Barrons' editors,
Dow Jones newswire reporters, and the SEC. And, if Ryals is linked to them in some way, it makes
sense that he never references them in his wild accusations.
You'd
think if Ryals were seriously interested in researching the
company, he would at least mention long-time critic and former division chief
Christoph Amberger's analysis in his posts. Nothing of the sort. His attention (and
venom) is focused elsewhere, on a motley band of right-leaning figures,
including Lew Rockwell, Patrick Byrne, and Jim Davidson, who have only one thing
in common obviously.
They
are all critics of the Federal Reserve and the paper money regime.
Therein
lies the true motivation for Ryals'
nasty, supposedly "progressive" rants.
4. Ryals exhibits a deep-seated hatred of
Christianity and the Pope in his writing. This is observation not
psychoanalysis, since none is needed. His mental state speaks for itself.
5.
He writes under multiple emails, probably as a result of being banned from
various forums or having his account deactivated for using too many aliases and
posting off-topic. Apparently he sees this as some kind of global censorship of
his stock investigations.
[I
can't say whether or not he has been censored in other contexts, but I certainly
never asked to censor his views on anything, except to ask him to remove false
and malicious statements about me. Besides, I have no motive to, since I also
think the financial world is riddled with fraud and corruption and have written
a lot about it. The only difference is that I don't make any distinctions
between different types of fraud, whereas Ryals (along with the establishment media in
general) prefers to focus on management-related fraud or stock-pumping and
money-laundering, while ignoring "activist" hedge-fund/speculator -related
fraud. This often boils down to a political division, since several libertarian
activists seem to show up in government cases of tax evasion or share
manipulation or licensing issues (eg. this pieceon intelligence analyst-turned-stock promoter, Bob
Chapman) whereas speculators and
banks, even those committing much larger and more consequential frauds, seem to
walk free.
As
one of the targets of his rants says:
"Your delight in attacking responsible people and companies and indiscriminately lumping them into a category with bad actors is a destructive way for someone to spend their time on the Internet. You carefully hide behind the anonymity of the Internet. I have no need to do so. " (Ronald Logan, Atty., Logan & Geotas, Phoenix, Arizona)
6.
Again, as I note below, I think the Deep Capture website is closer to the truth than the
other sites that try to identifyRyals (Causalnexus, Fraudwatch?). Both of these
claim he's a con man called Joe Cafasso. But somehow the profiles there don't
match what is known of Ryals.
[June
12: I have rewritten parts of this section, since there was some repetition in
the old version. I've also added some new links I came across about Ryals}
So
who is Ryals?
Clarence
Anthony Ryals was born in Texas (could this be him?) and is a small investor/trader, who lost
his inheritance in the market. That much seems to be accurate, but the rest is a
mish-mash of links, names, and events that sometimes have only a tenuous
connection to each other.
As
I just said, this is either because Ryals has a mental problem...or because someone
pays him to write as if he does. You'll notice that his writings on other
topics besides finance (like his pieces on cocoa) display none of the confusion
and contradiction evident in his comments on naked short-selling.
While
he doesn't sound like the professional con artist described at CausalNexus, he
associates on boards with some people who might well be. He has become something
of an eccentric local fixture, showing up in accounts of travelers to Guatemala. (That is, if the "cocoa man" is really him,
and not a ficitious persona).
More
to the point, and quite oddly, Ryals'
name has also shown up in several newspaper articles in the MSM, and he seems to
have corresponded with several reputed print journalists, including Carol
Remond, Christopher Byron, Gary Weiss, and blogger Jeff Mitchell, among others.
There is a degree of attention-seeking in his name-dropping about the people he
"knows" and their interest in his incessant self-referential cut-and-paste
posts.
I
notice that in the past few months he's stopped referencing me in his posts. I
think maybe it sank into his head that I've been telling the truth.
{Update: Feb 15 2011: Unfortunately, this hiatus was
short-lived]
Update
5 (September 10, 2010):
I’ve
made all except two of my previous posts on Agora private, as there isn’t any longer a valid
reason for them to be aired in the public realm. They’ll stay that way,
unless I see some further need to republish them. (Added: May 3, 2011: Since
then, Ryals’s
renewed libels, as well as other developments, have led me to keep most of my
posts up).
Internet
disclosures are permanent and very intrusive and I made those only after
carefully weighing any personal injury they might cause against my own right to
defend my credibility and the public interest at stake. My judgment at this
point is that my privacy, as well as the privacy of the people I’ve cited,
trumps any public interest in the matter.
So,
the only posts still public are this one and another responding to web libel
directed against me. These two will remain public as long as those libels remain
on the net.
Update
4 (June 26, 2010):
Re:
the accusation by Ryals (multiple posted) that I created a “vanity”
bio. This is rubbish too. You can’t actually create a “vanity” bio. There are a
number of criteria for an entry, and an entry that doesn’t meet those criteria
will be removed in short order.
So
that’s Ryals’
imagination. My bio was originally created by someone who liked the Abu Ghraib
book. I didn’t know about it and found out purely by accident. Originally,
wikipedia also had a photo of me posted there, which I had removed - something
I surely wouldn’t have done, if I was interested in self-promotion. That was in
2006.
Shortly
after, I wrote in support of the 9-11 truth movement. It was at that point that
someone at wikipedia decided I didn’t deserve an entry and tried to remove my
page. The discussion ended with my entry being retained. That actually happened
twice and had everything to do with my writing on Zionism and 9-11, since
Wikipedia is controlled on certain subjects by a Zionist cabal, to which Gary
Weiss, allegedly, belongs. Weiss is highly critical of Patrick Byrne and the
whole anti-naked-short-selling campaign, whereas, in general and with some
caveats, I support it. Weiss is, allegedly, protected by Jimmy Wales, the
founder/owner of Wikipedia. I know nothing about Wales, beyond what I read. In
fact, I first heard Wales’ name from the Ryals.
In
2008-09, when there was an issue about the attribution of certain articles, a
close friend added pieces to the existing list of my articles at the wikipedia
entry. Nothing wrong with that. There was nothing promotional about the list.
It was a factual record of the truth. I blogged about that and about Deep
Capture, Weiss and Ryals.
In July-August 2009, a pro-Zionist editor at wikipedia saw my blog post (which
was supportive of DC) and immediately tried to eliminate my wiki entry again.
The editor also tried to expunge the wikipedia entry for the GetAbstract business award, which is given out by a
libertarian business outfit in Switzerland and is a well-known, well-regarded
and influential award, cited in all major media. That shows you what the
political agenda of wikipedia is.
**My
credentials are exactly as I’ve said they are and they can be verified quite
easily by anyone who puts in the effort and uses their intelligence. More than
that I’m unwilling to put on the net, given that my blog is fairly controversial
and I’m an immigrant writing about politics here. I travel widely and spend a
lot of time outside the country, which is why I regard myself as an unofficial
expat. In a while, I’ll put up some of my doctoral work, as well as
testimonials (suitably scrubbed) as verification.
Another
example. Ryals claims that I must be Msid (a wikipedia editor who edited James
Davidson’s entry there).
Quote: I
suspect the Mysid alias Wikpedia editor is really the fraud and possibly
dangerous Agora Inc criminal LilaRajiva.
Now
take a look at the Msid profile. Msid is (or claims to be) a biosciences student
from somewhere in northern Europe. She edited the Davidson entry in early
November 2005, before I’d even been hired by Agora. At the
time I was still teaching and was working on the release of my first book, “The
Language of Empire” . As you can imagine, I was swamped with work and with
articles and PR connected with the book…. as any writer would be. Fiddling with
a stranger’s wikipedia page would be the last thing I’d have time for, even if you assume
I was engaged in some kind of global conspiracy to cover up for an Anglophile
stock-promoter/political activist I’d never laid eyes on and had only heard
about from Ryals’ Indymedia posting in the first place. What’s more,
a brown-skinned, black-haired, middle-aged Indian humanities scholar who relies
on her web reputation for her credibility would surely do something a tad
easier and smarter than moonlight as a blue-eyed (presumably), twenty-something
Scandinavian science student whose email, IP address, appearance and identity
could easily be verified by wikipedia.
Update
2, June 13, 2010): I’ve noticed
that several Indymedia outlets (see here and here) are now
deleting/hidingRyals’
posts, not because they’re censoring the content (which would be wrong) but
because it’s obvious that he’s posting for reasons quite other than what he
states. He’s google-bombing and using Indymedia as a PR tool rather than an
information outlet. Add to that, cross-posting, endless self-referential links,
repetition, ad hominem, and vicious twisting of facts. Recently, I
also noticed this allegation that Ryals is actually a well-known confidence man
called Joe Cafasso. That doesn’t seem too plausible to me, but who
knows…..
In
any case, what is clear is that there seems to be a long streak of confusion and
disinformation of some kind inRyals posts, as even fellow message-board aficionados and anti-NSS critics have noted:
“Mark
[Cuban, of Blog Maverick], do us
a favor and introduce an ignore feature to your blog. This will be a very
interesting topic and I’d like to put Tony Ryals on ignore so I don’t have to wade through 50
pages of him cutting and pasting stuff and self indulging his ego with fragments
of illiterate sentences that adds nothing to the conversation but instead clogs
any threads of rational discussion.”
The account of Ryals at Deep Capture is probably closest to the truth. I
should add that I’ve also seen some evidence in his writing that Ryals is connected to the Wall Street “media mob,”
which has been connected to a disinformation campaign conducted by the big
banks. The media mob tends to be uncritically admiring of stock vigilantes, even though a number of them have ended up
in prison, as you can see from checking out the comments on this Deep Capture post.
Update
1: I’ve added a few
facts/explanations to this response (originally posted at Indymedia), since the posterRyals then did what cyberstalkers and flamers like
to do - returned and twisted even my innocuous defense into something
different.
(Added
on Feb 15, 2011: I am using his
name in my revisions/updates because he no longer rushes out to attack when
mentioned, which was his old m.o.)
Introduction
to Post (Feb 15, 2011):
I’ve
posted below my published response to the libels of a cyberstalker and
stock-basher (associated, in my belief, as well as in the belief of others, with a group of bashers posing as stock vigilantes, such as Janice
Shell, some of whom are directly
connected to Anthony
Elgindy’s stock-board - anthonypacific.com). Ryals’
abusive and libelous rants about me, and many other people, can be found on Indymedia and other forums:
Original
Response On Indymedia
1.
I do not know, have never met, and have never corresponded with Porter
Stansberry, James Davidson, Bud Burrell, or Gary Weiss. Or Jimmy Wales. I’m certainly not “covering up” for them or
for anyone else at Agora Inc. or at Deep Capture. Many of the
allegations/facts about Agora cited by this poster Ryals have actually been taken without attribution from research
first posted at my blog and then
twisted around to suit this poster’s agenda.
2.
I did not remove Mr. Davidson’s name from anywhere on wikipedia, nor have I ever
corresponded with Gary Weiss or
Jimmy Wales on wikipedia about Davidson. That can be verified by
looking up the record at wikipedia. I contribute once in a
while to comments at Deep
Capture, a site which is highly CRITICAL of Mr. Weiss. I’m not involved
in Deep Capture in any other way, and I’ve never received
any compensation from them for anything.
I
encountered and corresponded with someone called “Mantanmoreland” when I came
across his address and comments NOT at wiki, but at some internet forums like
the SEC website, where it was THIS POSTER Ryals who brought his name up:
[Overstock
CEO Patrick Byrne and Judd Bagley contend that Mantanmoreland is Weiss and have
posted as much on my blog. I tend to agree with them, but since I don't know for
sure, and because Weiss has himself denied it, I prefer not to make that
equation in public, since it might be construed as libelous. Also, the important
point I'm making is that I didn't run into Weiss on a wikipedia forum, nor did I
erase Davidson's name from wikipedia. That is pure magical thinking on the part
of the stalker. I ran into "Mantanmoreland" on the SEC forum while I was trying
to track down the stalker's libels and respond to them. I only corresponded with
Mantanmoreland to find out who my stalker was and for no other purpose. He said
he did not know. I forwarded the emails I had received from the stalker to him.
At no point did Mantanmoreland ever inform me he was Weiss or that he edited
wikipedia, or anything of the kind. Our exchange was solely about the identity
and motivation of the stalker, who had bashed us, as well as several other
people, including Professor James Angel of Georgetown, who made a film about
naked short-selling that set the poster off].
4.
I’ve never sold a stock to the public in my life and I’ve never sold a stock in
a tip-sheet. Ergo, I cannot be a “stock fraud” or “con artist.” I’m exactly what I say I am - a writer
and former school/college teacher. Any investment analysis I’ve ever offered can
been seen below.
Note
(Feb 15, 2011): I’ve modified and
added links to the rest of my original Indymedia post so as to include new
information/ links that I’ve come up with.
On
the other hand, the poster Ryals is a known basher, who’s had his account deactivated for using too many aliases, and who has a
history of posting alongside bashers, such as Hasher and Janice
Shell, at Raging Bull. He also
associates with some internet posters who are proven extortioners and felons
(names deliberately withheld). He lives in Guatemala and posts under dozens of
IPs, names, and email addresses.
In this post he
references one of his own aliases deceptively to support his claims.
One
of his email aliases is biodog0; others are William Knowles, endoscam; and wolfblitzzer0. That last alias is listed in the original complaint in the Zwebner suit as an alias of another stock-board poster,
which is how I originally confused the two (I posted my apology to this
gentleman at Atomic Bob’s forum. Some of the links to that site have now
vanished and been replaced by a most fascinating disclaimer that some of the
people posting there were “role-playing” and that their utterances were not to
be taken at face-value as serious assertions of fact. These assertions have
appeared recently. I can’t say exactly, but I noticed the disclaimer in the last
month or so. From the elaborately defensive posture, it seems the site owner
might have been informed that some of the posts there went beyond the legal
pale. Question: Is Ryals one of the “roles” being played, as I’ve
suspected for a while? In other words, it “he” simply a fictitious
persona?)
[Besides
that, busholini0, another alias
said to be this other man's, shows up in a post by Ryals as a term he favors. So, although the
two are apparently different individuals, there is evidence of some kind of
association. What and how relevant, I can't say.]
Note:
Zwebner’s case against the other poster, and associated John Doe’s, was dismissed for failing to
meet the standard of particularity necessary to prove fraud libel.
Ryals has posted gloatingly that he was “sued by
Zwebner” and indulged in some malevolent personal attacks on Zwebner.
Now,
Zwebner might or might not be what he is characterized as, but simply as a
student of human nature, I find it unbelievable that anyone supposedly so
traumatized by financial losses would spend so much time and energy viciously
attacking people who did not personally injure him. It doesn’t ring true.
Devastated victims do not go around spewing malevolence at anyone who crosses
their path for ten years after their loss, using gutter language and
allegations. I myself lost a considerable sum following bad advice. My reaction
to that was to not want to see or read the missives of the people whose advice I
followed. I didn’t want to talk about the loss, was ashamed of it, and turned my
energies elsewhere for several years.
[Note: Because the other person, Villasenor, is an Elgindy-related basher, I refer to Ryals as Elgindy-related. As it turns out, it
appears I was wrong to identify them as one person. However Ryals also posts under multiple aliases on stock
forums, shares similar -sounding email addresses, and was identified as the same
person in a lawsuit brought by Michael Zwebner. Janice Shell, who also
vehemently attacks naked short-selling on the same stock boards and is rumored
to have several sidekicks, including Ryals, is
closely connected to Elgindy. A self-styled consumer protector, she was
later shown to be profiting from her bashing..So "Elgindy-associated"
stands. I try to not to use the poster's name, since
when he's named anywhere, he immediately shows up, twists the post around and
reposts it multiple times with fresh accusations added.]
5.
I worked as a part-time contract editor/writer for Bill Bonner’s Daily Reckoning column, where I did research, editing and
writing from late 2005-early 2006 up till the fall of 2007. I know nothing about
the other departments of his company and was never involved with anyone else
there. I worked directly under Mr. Bonner and Mr. Wiggin.
Most
of the time I worked on the book I was abroad and worked through the internet,
with very limited contact with anyone except Mr. Bonner. I returned to the US in 2007 for the
publication of the book and then again left to go abroad, shortly after the
release of the book.
6.
If the poster Ryals has a problem with Davidson, Stansberry, or
Bonner or with Weiss or Burrell, it
is very odd that he should spend his time bashing various libertarian bystanders
on public forums. Why doesn’t he just address his enemies directly?
[Notice
there is no posting at the Daily
Reckoning site by this poster, no
libels of Davidson, Stansberry, Bonner, or Weiss on their websites. Why not? ]
Correction:
This isn’t an objection…they might just be deleting the material.
[Added
on April 22, 2011: It's odd that
dozens of people who actually do sell stocks and do know all the people atAgora (Davidson, Stansberry etc.) whom Ryals references are never trashed by him.
Long-time Agora associates actively involved in selling
stock or real estate newsletters, and far more embedded in the company, are
mysteriously ignored. This is surely very suggestive.] June 12, 2011: It’s also
odd that when
writing about other subjects, like cocoa, Ryals is able to write coherently and logically, even fluently, about
complicated things. But on the subject of finance and politics, not so. Then he
resorts to copy-pasting other people’s half-digested articles and recycling links referencing his previous
posts, over and over, confusing and contradicting himself at every turn, often
willfully, and exhibiting a petty malevolence and fury if he is rebutted. This
again suggests that his financial postings conceal a deeper agenda.
7.
I left Agora in October 2007. My contract for the book
was with John Wiley and my royalties are paid through them.Agora is not mentioned anywhere in that contract.
Any promotion of the book that I do is as a co-author, with a contractual
obligation to publicize the book. I’ve never been paid to blog by Agora, as this
poster implies, and I’ve never sought any other compensation or advantage for
blogging. Quite the contrary.
[The
dispute I had was over whether the book with Bonner was an Agora book. This point was never clarified and it
led to a number of problems that
undermined my original agreement with Mr. Bonner. that have been resolved. However,and I've put the issue behind
me. as there's little to be done at this
point].
8.
I have never harassed or stalked the poster, as he claims. The opposite is true.
I contacted him in 2005 to find out more about allegations he (the poster Ryals) had
plastered over the net about Agora. He sent
me emails alleging that there was a vast on-going fraud centered around an
investment of his with Mr. Davidson. At my interview I asked Mr. Bonner, as
well as Mr. Wiggin, if Davidson still worked there. They said no and actually
distanced themselves from him.*
Quote: “We had a lot of bad publicity about that.
We’re trying to put it behind us.”
I
told the poster Ryals that, as can be seen from the email he has
cited, and had no further exchange with him until November 2007, when I left the
company because of differences over the promotion of the book, copyright, and
other matters. I felt I had been treated very shabbily and thought I should find
out more.
(*This
was one of many things that turned out to be not quite as they told
me).
At
that point, the poster Ryals found from my blog that I was a Ron Paul
supporter and had had some articles published on the Lew Rockwell site. This changed his attitude toward
me, which until then had been respectful and admiring. He flew into a rage and
flamed my blog with dozens of posts calling me a “stock fraud,” “bimbo,” “con
artist,” and so on. Meanwhile, in my response, I only asked him very civilly
why he couldn’t have just asked me any questions over email rather than take it
to the internet (see email cited).
That’s
the sum of my correspondence with him, a total of 4 5 polite letters over 2 years, the
first two quite sympathetic to his story, and one message no more than a
sentence in length. This the poster Ryals calls “stalking.”
On
the other hand, since November 2007, Ryals has pseudonymously* flamed my blog dozens of
time, all the while libeling me on Google in scores of vicious rants that
connect me via six degrees of separation to everyone from the Pentagon shooter
to Christopher Cox, in multiple highly-visible forums on the web.
(*He
uses multiple false emails and IP addresses, even if, as he now claims, his name
is genuine)
He’s
attacked me every time I’ve tried to correct his false statements. He’s attacked
me every time I’ve posted about a conference or business contact. The object is
obviously to cause me maximum personal and professional damage, with no concern
for the truth or falsity of what he’s saying. His writing displays the sadism
and emotional fixation that are part of the classic profile of stalkers. I
strongly suspect him, or his associates, of hacking my email and blog, or
inciting/provoking others indirectly to do so. It has come to the point that I
am looking at professional security experts to protect me and my family.
What’s
more, I suspect that someone must be paying him to write like this because he
doesn’t seem to have any known means of support and has admitted to being
penniless. He rarely criticizes the major banks and speculators involved in the
ongoing fraud on our capital markets, so it’s more than plausible that his rants
are related to an effort to discredit those who do criticize them, or they are intended to
confuse the issue.
[May
7: I went back over his posts and noticed that has has lately started tacking on
references to Goldman Sachs and John Paulson onto his cut and paste diatribes,
possibly in response to my analysis. Again, this kind of thing makes me suspect
more and more that there is some kind of disinformation being pumped through
him. I might be wrong. But no other explanation makes sense at this point.
This
doesn’t mean all his targets are necessarily innocent. It means that he isn’t
either.
I’ve
counseled him to stop lashing out at innocent people in his rage, several times.
Libel is as surely a crime as fraud. Slander is as serious an injury as physical
attack.
Most
experts counsel not responding in any way to cyber-bullying of this sort and
staying off the web altogether. Unfortunately, as a blogger, I can’t do
this.
9.
Any information related to Agora has been disclosed on my blog carefully not
to “cover up” (a quite laughable allegation, given my outspokenness about them
both in person and on the web), but to avoid legal trouble and to respect the
right to privacy and presumption of innocence of the individuals
named.
Claiming
to act in “the public interest” doesn’t mean you can be defamatory with
impunity, even under current first amendment law.
10.
Hundreds of malicious, sweeping, undocumented, and highly speculative
allegations do nothing to add to the poster’s credibility (or to Indymedia’s). It only serves to make
a mockery of community media and hinder the efforts of real
activists/journalists.
I
wonder if such posts would be allowed if the targets hadn’t been libertarians
but socialists.
I seriously doubt it.
I seriously doubt it.
For
shame.
Lila Rajiva
PS. I stand by the remark that I made in early
2008 (after I had left Agora and was no longer receiving compensation for
them in any way and without any solicitation on their part). I remarked that if
you had followed Bonner’s ‘trade of the decade’ (sell the stock market, buy gold) you
would indeed have doubled your money by 2008. I didn’t do that to “promote
Bonner” . It was simply a truthful observation and I brought it up in my
exchange with the poster to defend myself from his charge that my book was
somehow inaccurate or misleading. It was not. Read it and see.
_
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