How the Advertised Cure Can Actually Cause the Disease

Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed its version of new legislation (the STOCK Act) restricting ‘insider’ trading by government workers.

The STOCK acronym stands for Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge.  Members of Congress (and the staff) can be aware of legislative developments that impact the fortunes of publicly-traded companies, and have traded on that information.  This incentive does not apply only to stock trading; for example, a new book called Throw Them All Out dedicates a chapter to land deals, where members of Congress (including a name known to many Boiling Frogs fans, Dennis Hastert) have purchased land whose value benefited from later Congressional actions aiding infrastructure and highway development projects.  Read more È

Money matters provide some of most compelling unanswered questions regarding the events of September 11, 2001.   These questions point to possible darker truths, in part because of the incomplete and/or misleading treatments in official investigations to date. Pressing questions remain in at least three issue areas, including money transfers, suspicious activity reporting, and informed securities trading.  In turn, cursory and misleading conclusions among relevant investigatory parties suggest a cover-up consistent with the possibility that the crimes of 9/11 were allowed to happen, or worse.

9/11-Money Transfers

In early October 2001, director of Pakistani intelligence services Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed was forced out of his position in the wake of published reports linking him to wire transfers totaling $100,000 into the bank account of alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in Florida before 9/11.  Ahmed was actually in Washington having breakfast with leaders of the U.S. Congressional intelligence committees on the morning of 9/11. 

Ahmed’s removal and the possible link to Atta’s financing were reported in U.S. as well as foreign media sources in late 2001.  But the issue went unmentioned in the 9/11 Commission report.  And on p. 172 of its final report the Commission apparently washed our hands of further investigative responsibility while concluding that “To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks.  Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.  Al Qaeda had many avenues of funding.â€�  This shocking conclusion reeks of irresponsibility, at best, and its possible motivation is reflected in the Commission’s similar treatment of issues relating to possible informed/insider trading (see below). Read more È