I don’t know anything about David Einhorn. I’m a fat guy with Google.
Apparently he has a book called “Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, a Long Short Story”
In 2002, David Einhorn, the President of Greenlight Capital, gave a speech at a charity investment conference to benefit a children’s cancer hospital. He was asked to share his best investment idea, so he did. He described his reasons why Greenlight had sold short the shares of Allied Capital, a leader in the private finance industry. Greenlight bet that the stock would decline because the company’s business was in trouble and its accounting was corrupt.
Einhorn’s speech was so compelling that the next day, when the New York Stock Exchange opened for trading, Allied’s shares remained closed. So many investors wanted to sell or short the stock that the NYSE could not balance all the sell orders to open Allied’s trading in an orderly fashion.
What followed was a firestorm of controversy. Allied responded with a Washington–style spin-job — attacking Einhorn and disseminating half-truths and outright lies. Rather than protect investors by reviewing Einhorn’s well-documented case against Allied, the SEC — at the behest of the politically connected Allied — instead investigated Einhorn for stock manipulation. Over the ensuing six years, the SEC allowed Allied to make the problem bigger by approving more than a dozen additional stock offerings that raised over $1 billion from new investors.
Undeterred by the spin-job, lies, and investigations, Greenlight continued its research after the speech and discovered Allied’s behavior was far worse than Einhorn ever suspected — and, shockingly, it continues to this day.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Timeis the gripping chronicle of this ongoing saga. Page by page, it delves deep inside Wall Street, showing how the $6 billion hedge fund Greenlight Capital conducts its investment research and detailing the maneuvers of an unscrupulous company. Along the way, you’ll witness feckless regulators, compromised politicians, and the barricades our capital markets have erected against exposing misconduct from important Wall Street customers. You will also discover the immense difficulties that prevent the government from sanctioning politically connected companies — making future Enrons inevitable. This revealing book shows the failings of Wall Street: its investment banks, analysts, journalists, and especially our government regulators.
At its most basic level, Allied Capital is the story of Wall Street at its worst. But the story is much bigger than one little-known company.Fooling Some of the People All of the Time is an important call for effective law enforcement, free speech, and fair play.
Honestly, I don’t know what any of that means. I still don’t know the man.
Here he is giving a speech in 2002. As a man in my early 40’s I can tell you that there’s a difference between 40’s and 30’s – so don’t necessarily judge the man you see here.
While many fund managers work well into the night, Mr. Einhorn is known to leave the office early enough to get home to Westchester for his daughter’s Little League games. He is active in several charities and, with his wife, Cheryl, set up a trust whose mission is to help people get along better.
But Mr. Einhorn also grew up in a financially minded home. His father is a banker who helps facilitate mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Einhorn helped found his hedge fund in 1996, when he was in his late 20s — a young age by industry standards — with less than a million dollars, much of which came from his parents.
Little league – cool. I don’t know what the hell “less than a million dollars” means. I have “less than a million dollars” but the context clues suggest that daddy laid out some serious cash. No harm in that, I would help my kids too – but it does say “rich kid” to me.
Is David the cute little boy in the Kingman costume…or something else?
I’m cautiously optimistic, emphasis on the cautious. Very cautious. I can’t pinpoint it, but my spidey sense is tingling. As I have argued with some of you in the past, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. I’m a Mets fan. I worry.
That being said…welcome aboard David. I hope you get your championships.
I won’t stretch the truth and tell you that I knew Dana Brand well. The little that I knew Dana I liked very much.
Dana passed away yesterday of a heart attack, and I got the news from fellow blogger Greg Prince.
I thought I’d start with letting Dana tell you about himself.
My name is Dana Brand and I’ve written
a book called Mets Fan. My book is for all of us.
I write about why we are Mets fans and why we
are not Yankee fans.
I write about what the players mean to us.
I write about the good years and the bad years.
I write about what we feel when we
go to Citifield, and see Mr. Met, when we
see our logo, sing our song, or cheer for
our team.
I write about what we feel when we bring our kids
to a game. Or when we watch the most important
games in Mets history with the people we love.
I write about what the Mets are in our lives, about
how beautiful baseball is and how wonderful,
exciting, sad, and horrible it can be.
I am a Professor of English and American
Literature at Hofstra University. I got my Ph.D.
from Yale where I studied with A. Bartlett
Giamatti, with whom I often discussed baseball.
Back in the winter of 2009-2010 I did a Meet the Bloggers series and Dana said…
My blog pieces are essays about the experience of the Mets fan. I write about the ballpark, the heritage of the team, the experience of family and community, and the mood of the fanbase. I write about the lyricism and humor of the Mets fan. I write about the way in which being Mets fans connects with all of the other ways in which we live our lives. As far as I know, I am the oldest Mets blogger. I am 55 and I remember listening to the very first game the Mets played.
April 2012 will mark the 50th anniversary of the New York Mets, one of the most popular and culturally significant baseball franchises.
On Thursday through Sunday, April 26-28, 2012, Hofstra University will host a conference to consider all aspects of the history and culture of the team. This will be the first multidisciplinary conference to consider every aspect of a Major League Baseball franchise.
Expected participants at the conference will include current and former members of the Mets’ organization; baseball executives, journalists, broadcasters, and analysts; baseball scholars, historians, and cultural critics; and writers, artists, filmmakers, cartoonists, bloggers, collectors, and fans.
Presentations will be accepted on the basis of 300-500 word abstracts submitted by December 1, 2011.
Possible topics include: The Origins of the Mets; The Roots, Myths and Evolution of Mets Fandom; Defining Individuals in Mets History; Mets Icons, Symbols and Mascots; The 1969 Mets Season: How It Happened, What It Meant to People, and How It Survives as a Cultural Metaphor; The Mets in Subsequent Eras; The Mets and Queens; The Mets and Long Island; The Mets and New York Baseball; The Mets in Film; The Mets in Literature; The Mets and the Culture and Politics of New York City; Mets Broadcasting; Mets Journalism; Famous Fans; The Mets and New York’s Ethnic and Cultural Communities; Defining Moments in the History of the Mets; Mets Controversies; Shea Stadium; The Mets Blogosphere; The Pleasures and Perils of Professional Baseball in New York; and Covering a Baseball Team in the Unique Media Environment of New York.
I was hoping to take part in the conference in some small way. Nothing would make me happier to know that this conference goes on in Dana’s absence and memory.
Greg Prince, better with words than I, as always, including this sentence has a lovely piece about Dana up on Faith & Fear..
After I learned that Dana had died, I flashed back on our last meeting, unplanned, in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda at Citi Field on April 10. He was at the first Sunday home game of the year alone and I was at the first Sunday home game of the year alone. Dana wanted to soak up the new season in solitude. I wanted a magnetic schedule and didn’t feel like asking around if anybody wanted to go. When we recognized each other, we greeted as old friends, as people who had been old friends going much further back than September 2007, which is when we actually first met. As I learned on that occasion, at the Long Beach Public Library, we went way the hell back. I guess I knew that from having read Mets Fan, but it was kind of thrilling to feel it unfold in person. Here was, per the title of the book he was in my hometown to read from, a Mets Fan. Here was somebody who shared my life with me without knowing it. That’s how it is among all of us, isn’t it? With Dana, it was immediate and it was warm and it was as all-encompassing in a Mets Fan sense as it could be.
In April, we did what Mets Fans like us who go way the hell back do: we complained. We complained about the Mets. We bitched and we moaned and we griped and we found fault. But not for a second were we unhappy while we were doing this.
NEW YORK METS SELECT DAVID EINHORN
AS PREFERRED PARTNER
Einhorn to Invest $200 Million for Minority, Non-Operating Stake in Team
FLUSHING, N.Y., May 26, 2011 – The New York Mets today announced that David Einhorn has been selected as the team’s preferred partner and that the Mets and Mr. Einhorn have entered into exclusive negotiations with respect to a minority, non-operating investment in the team. The $200 million personal investment by Mr. Einhorn is subject to the negotiation of a mutually acceptable definitive agreement for the transaction, as well as required approvals by Major League Baseball. The parties expect to enter into definitive agreements by late June.
“We are very excited about David joining our ownership group for several reasons,” said Fred Wilpon, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, New York Mets. “David’s investment immediately improves the franchise’s financial position. Equally important, David’s intelligence, integrity and success in both business and civic affairs provides us with another perspective in evaluating what is best for this organization and our fans, and we welcome his input. In partnership with David, we look forward to achieving our ultimate goal of again becoming World Series champions.”
Mr. Einhorn stated, “Having an opportunity to become part of the Mets franchise is exciting beyond my wildest childhood dreams. I spent my first seven years living in New Jersey and rooting for the Mets. In 1975, I even dressed in a homemade jersey as a Met for Halloween. I have been a baseball fan for my entire life and have enjoyed teaching the game as the coach of my daughter’s little league team. I look forward to partnering with the Wilpon and Katz families through the good seasons, the tough seasons and especially the championship seasons.”
Mr. Einhorn is President of Greenlight Capital, Inc., a private investment firm which he co-founded in January 1996, and is Chairman of the Board of Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. Along with his wife, Mr. Einhorn formed the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, whose mission is to help people get along better. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Robin Hood Foundation.
This is the giveaway for Saturday June 4th which I believe is a Saturday, unlike Saturday May 28th. You explain to my kid why we don’t have tickets but we do have tickets for Tuesday (which is a Saturday).
Who wants to play Match Game 2011? Ready?
This orange back on this cap is so weird. How weird is it? The best thing you can say about it is that it’s not ______.
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I don’t know anything about David Einhorn. I’m a fat guy with Google.
