Hooped Up

It was only a few years ago through conversation that I even heard about Mavericks owner Mark Cuban by a die hard NBA fan and being an MBA with an obvious interest in the business world, it was hard to believe that this was the first time this flamboyant young owner appeared on my business radar.

Lot has changed since but, the SECs insatiable hunger for going after rich and successful people has not. The SEC like the rest of the Bush House, works with a definitive goal in mind. Like a hard working mad scientist, they know the answer; just define the question. Show their “findings” to the world, pat each other in the back and move over to the next answer. This is called Forensic Accounting. In my opinion this is nothing more than the modern day version of Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” but with accounting as the back drop. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer and in this case, the jail house!

Wait till all of us find out that Mark Cuban was a key contributor in Obama’s campaign. Then all the proverbial shit will hit the roof. “We told you so” and “Sean –my- republican- finger- in- your- face-Hannity” will have a nice evening for a change in the “false news network” program.  Like the good Samaritans in the Bush House who acquitted “Sarah-I-won’t-go-away-Palin” right before the last leg of the election for Troopergate, similar comrades in SEC charged Cuban of insider trading. Some people may draw loose comparisons of Cuban with Martha Stewart but come-on, you can’t compare Mark Cuban with Martha Stewart. For starters, she bit the dirt for an amount equivalent to Lindsay Lohan’s lingerie bill and for whatever it’s worth, my mother told me to be leery of a woman who can make a flower out of a napkin – a good advice which holds true even to this date and I talk with personal experience.

While at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, home of the Mavericks, in late June 2004 Cuban received an email from Mamma.com’s CEO, asking that he call as soon as possible (SEC claims). During an almost nine-minute call, Cuban promised to keep the information secret before learning the company planned a private investment in public equity offering, known as a PIPE. Cuban became very upset and angry during the conversation, and said, among other things, that he did not like PIPEs because they dilute the existing shareholders,” driving down the value of their stock, the SEC wrote in its complaint. At the end of the call, Cuban told the CEO, “Well, now I’m screwed. I can’t sell,” the SEC said. He did what any law abiding, patriotic citizen would do. Look at the precedence set by our leaders of the nation. Bush and Cheney.  So, he sells all his shares. By the way, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the SEC outlawed insider trading rating it to be a worse crime than incest, treason, murder, rape. If you know anything about the market, trillions and trillions of dollars exchange hands of people who have better information than others. Come to think of it, that’s what makes the markets efficient.

Since change is the mantra of the year, I say to SEC: look at the real Kajunas like AIG, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Cheney’s Halliburton and Bush’s entire 8 years. When the lines are so blurred and the fog is so thick, I am sure this momentary lapse in judgment to greed can be over looked when you have BUSH HOUSE as the benchmark. While SEC is busy doing a “real investigation”, Cuban should be given a strict community service sentence. Instead of sending him to cut lawns or fold laundry in the prison, invite him to the white (which should be renamed now) house to oversee the business operations of government initiatives which are running in deficit.  While we are at it, let’s legalize insider trading too. But for that, I will make my case some other time.