Max Keiser

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Max Keiser

Max Keiser in a London taxi
Born Timothy Maxwell Keiser
January 23, 1960 (1960-01-23) (age 52)
Education NYU
Occupation Journalist
Notable relatives German and Scottish Ancestry, Hugh Maxwell, V 1777-1860
Notable credit(s) Hollywood Stock Exchange, People & Power, The Oracle with Max Keiser, Karmabanque
Official website

Timothy Maxwell "Max" Keiser (born January 23, 1960) is an American broadcaster and film-maker.

He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on RT - formerly Russia Today.[1]. Keiser also anchors On the Edge, a program of news and analysis hosted by Iran's Press TV.[2]

Keiser hosted the New Year's Eve special, The Keiser's Business Guide to 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live.[3] He has also appeared

Keiser presented a season of The Oracle with Max Keiser on BBC World News. Previously he produced and appeared regularly in the TV series People & Power on the Al-Jazeera English network. He also presents a weekly show about finance and markets on London's Resonance FM, as well as writing for The Huffington Post.[4]

In addition to his broadcasting work, Keiser is known for his invention of "Virtual Specialist Technology" - a software system used by the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Contents

[edit] Early career

Keiser has been involved with markets and finance for 25 years. He started his career as a stock broker on Wall Street after graduating from New York University.

[edit] Hollywood Stock Exchange

Main article: Hollywood Stock Exchange

Keiser is the creator, co-founder and former CEO of HSX Holdings/Hollywood Stock Exchange, later sold to Cantor Fitzgerald.[5] Max co-created the Hollywood Stock Exchange with Michael R. Burns.[6] The Hollywood Stock Exchange allows traders to exchange virtual securities such as "MovieStocks", and "StarBonds" and convertible virtual currency, the Hollywood Dollar.

Keiser is also the co-founder of HSX films that went on to make almost a dozen films, including "Mixed Signals", "Six-String Samurai", "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81", and "girl". The company then sold to Ignite Entertainment/Lionsgate.

[edit] Broadcasting career

Keiser presented "Rumble at the Box Office"[7] for NBC's Access Hollywood. He also produced and hosted the weekly talk show, Buy, Sell, Hold for CBS radio's KLSX in Los Angeles. Currently, he presents The Truth About Markets on Resonance 104.4 FM in London and on RDU 98.5 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

[edit] People & Power

Main article: People & Power

Keiser produced ten short documentary films covering aspects of financial markets for Al Jazeera's series People & Power.[8]

Films include "Rigged Markets",[9] Money Geyser,[10] Death of the Dollar,[11] Peaked,[12] Extraordinary Antics,[13] Savers vs Speculators,[14] Banking on It,[15] Private Finance or Public Swindle?,[16] Focus on Locusts.[17]

[edit] The Oracle with Max Keiser

A pilot episode was produced for Al-Jazeera English titled The Oracle. This was developed into a series for [18] BBC World News. The series first aired on January 9, 2009 and ran for ten episodes. It explored financial current affairs from the perspective of prediction markets. It was intended to be a humorous take on financial news before it happens.

[edit] On The Edge

A weekly financial commentary show which started in 2009 and is broadcast on Press TV featuring interviews with well known alternative economists.[19]

[edit] The Keiser Report

Since September 2009, Keiser has hosted The Keiser Report with financial news and analysis, on the RT network. The 30-minute program is produced three times a week. Stacy Herbert is the co-host and banters with Max on headlines and commentary.[20].

An episode broadcast in September 2011 featured an interview with comedienne Rosanne Barr who stated that her solution to the financial crisis was to "bring back the guillotine"[21].

[edit] Financial punditry

Keiser has appeared as a financial pundit on a number of news-networks. His appearances are remarkable for the often incendiary nature of his remarks. For example, Keiser called for a "fatwa" against Hank Paulson[22] on Al Jazeera in response to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In a later-broadcast Keiser said "Paulson Stinks".[23] Keiser has advised investors to buy Silver bullion and physical silver, promoting the metal as a store of value.

[edit] Activism

[edit] Karmabanque

Keiser founded the hedge fund Karmabanque which sought to profit from any decline in equity-value of companies that are susceptible to boycott from environmental groups.[24] The hedge fund's progress was followed monthly in The Ecologist magazine.[25] Its targets included Coca-Cola[26] and McDonald's. The Karmabanque hedge fund project was designed to simultaneously short-sell companies while funnelling profits from this activity into environmental and ethical-business pressure groups which further act to drive down the price. Describing the project, Keiser states "The Internet allows people, activists, from all over the world to gather, or swarm, and hit a company where it hurts most -- in their stock price."[27]

[edit] Extraordinary Antics

In the Al-Jazeera short-film Extraordinary Antics[28] Keiser travels to Milan and Venice Italy to find out how CIA agent Robert Seldon Lady and his fellow agents spent $500,000 on a procedure known as extraordinary rendition - a practice which is illegal and caused an Egyptian citizen, who had been granted asylum in Italy, to be abducted in order to face torture in Cairo. The CIA was prosecuted for the case and CIA station chief Robert Lady was found guilty in a Milan court and sentenced on November 9, 2009 to nine years in an Italian prison, according to the Guardian Newspaper. This verdict was upheld on appeal. The US refuses to extradite Mr Lady to Italy.[29]

[edit] Crash JP Morgan buy silver

Max Keiser has labeled JP Morgan "the biggest financial terrorist on Wall St", in relation to their alleged manipulation of the price of silver.[30] Keiser has started a campaign called "Crash JP Morgan buy silver",[31][32][33] where people buy silver, thus raising its price and leaving JP Morgan with a huge short position to cover, the margin of which are collateralized by JP Morgan's own stock price, bankrupting itself. Based on the collateralization of silver by the price of its shares, and, of course, his allegation that JP Morgan's position is an overwhelmingly large naked short position, Keiser predicted that the a per ounce silver price exceeding JP Morgan's stock price will not only crash JP Morgan, but unsettle the underpinnings of the dollar, which he claims are essentially confetti.

Adweek magazine described Keiser as "the most visible character in an underground movement that has spurred hundreds of blog posts and videos, and played some small part in driving up the price of precious metals."[34] However, Keiser's prediction that JP Morgan would go bust if Silver hit 47 dollars has failed to materialise, drawing criticism from the financial community.

[edit] Criticism

  • The Guardian newspaper, in an item titled "Mad Max", described Keiser's Karmabanque hedge fund as a "fantastical scheme" and accused him of trying to exist "beyond the normal forces and controls of society."[35]
  • Keiser drew criticism at the 2000 ShowBiz Expo in Las Vegas when he said of media content that "Everything is inescapably going to a price point called free." In response, Kevin Tsujihara, executive V.P. of New Media at Warner Bros., commented that "Piracy.com" will be the victor if superior content is available on sites supported by advertisements.[36]
  • In 2005, Steven Milloy, the "Junk Science" commentator demanded that Keiser be removed from the panel of the Triple Bottom Line Investing conference, where he was scheduled to appear. Milloy accused Keiser of making threats[37] against his organization and petitioned[38] sponsors Calvert Investments and KLD Research & Analytics to withdraw from the project. Robert Rubenstein founder of conference organiser Brooklyn Bridge stated that Keiser's comments “do not constitute a threat to person or property and are not related to the conference or the content that will be presented there”.
  • Referring to Keiser's Karmabanque project, a spokeswoman for RyanAir said, "Since they put Ryanair on their list, our share price has gone up by 10 per cent. We are always delighted to be part of a list which includes Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Wal-Mart.",[39] however on the same day The Hindu published an article in which Howard Millar, Ryanair deputy chief executive admitted that his company may be vulnerable to environmental pressure groups: "I am concerned that there is a continuing media campaign and the concern is that people might say 'maybe I will not fly on holiday and maybe I will make a different choice'."[40]

[edit] See also

Portal icon Biography portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Keiser Report — RT Programs". Russiatoday.com. http://www.russiatoday.com/About_Us/Programmes/Keiser_Report.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  2. ^ "Press TV website, programme list". Presstv.ir. http://www.presstv.ir/programs/. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  3. ^ "Radio 5 live Programmes - The Keiser's Business Guide to 2010". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pgpkc. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  4. ^ "Collection of articles". Huffingtonpost.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-keiser/#blogger_bio. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  5. ^ HSX: History, HSX
  6. ^ Keiser holds US patent for the 'Virtual Specialist Technology" on which the Hollywood Stock Exchange operates.
  7. ^ Braunstein, Peter (1999-11-16). "Access' Denied". Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-11-16/news/access-denied/. Retrieved 2010-10-26. 
  8. ^ People and Power (TV Series 2007– ) at the Internet Movie Database
  9. ^ "Rigged Markets". English.aljazeera.net. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2007/05/2008525185835422616.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  10. ^ "Money Geyser". English.aljazeera.net. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2007/08/200852518466637279.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  11. ^ "Death of the Dollar 2". English.aljazeera.net. 2008-02-08. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2007/12/20085251836767319.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  12. ^ Peaked (TV episode 2008 #1.22) at the Internet Movie Database
  13. ^ Extraordinary Antics, Aljazeera English
  14. ^ Savers vs Speculators, Aljazeera English
  15. ^ Banking on It, Aljazeera English
  16. ^ "Private finance or public swindle?". English.aljazeera.net. 2008-03-17. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2008/03/2008525185553743197.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  17. ^ "Focus on locusts". English.aljazeera.net. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2007/12/2008525173528498404.html. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  18. ^ "BBC News - World Radio and TV". Bbcworldnews.com. 2011-04-26. http://www.bbcworldnews.com/Pages/Programme.aspx?id=246. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  19. ^ On The Edge with Max Keiser, Press TV
  20. ^ "Keiser Report — RT Programs". Rt.com. http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  21. ^ "Roseanne Barr: 'Guilty' Wall Street Bankers Should Be Sent to Reeducation Camps or Beheaded". Fox News. 2011-10-03. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/10/03/roseanne-barr-guilty-wall-street-bankers-should-be-sent-to-reeducation-camps-or/. 
  22. ^ "Max Keiser - Aljazeera English News - 16 November 2008". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiWd0bGAdc. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  23. ^ "Afshin Rattansi : Global Rate Cuts". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRe0lIbSeaE. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  24. ^ Hedge Fund Shorts Its Way into Political Activism, CBS Marketwatch
  25. ^ Boycott Coca Cola: Boycott Coca-Cola and make money for the victims of Coca-Cola. How much can we make?, The Ecologist Magazine
  26. ^ Campaign aims to hit Coke where it hurts, Guardian
  27. ^ Hedge Funds Banking on Social and Moral Issues, Washington Post
  28. ^ "Extraordinary Antics, Part 1". Youtube.com. 2007-06-18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CVEMysbdOQ. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  29. ^ The CIA in the Dock, Der Spiegel
  30. ^ Taylor, Jeff. "Max Keiser tells the world to Crash JP Morgan, buy silver". The Economic Voice. http://www.economicvoice.com/max-keiser-tells-the-world-to-crash-jp-morgan-buy-silver#axzz15IxazSq7. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 
  31. ^ Keiser, Max. "Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver says Max Keiser". Max Keiser. http://maxkeiser.com/2010/11/12/crash-jp-morgan-buy-silver-america-says-max-keiser/. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 
  32. ^ Zarowny, Andrew (November 14, 2010). "Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver – Growing Economic Guerrilla War to Crash Bank With Silver Bullets". Rightpundits.com. http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=7681. Retrieved November 15, 2010. 
  33. ^ Taylor, Jeff (November 12, 2010). "Max Keiser tells the world to Crash JP Morgan, buy silver". The Economic Voice. http://www.economicvoice.com/max-keiser-tells-the-world-to-crash-jp-morgan-buy-silver/50014046#ixzz15MNhRZGX. Retrieved November 15, 2010. 
  34. ^ Braiker, Brian (2011-06-02). "Silver Bug Goes Viral With Marketing War Max Keiser has become a fringe media star thanks to the Web". Adweek. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/silver-bug-goes-viral-marketing-war-132161. 
  35. ^ Mad Max, Guardian
  36. ^ For some, Internet Offers Free Ride, Variety
  37. ^ "Advocacy". Free Enterprise Action Fund. http://www.freeenterpriseactionfund.com/release101005.htm. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  38. ^ "Clear Profit". Clear Profit. 2005-11-16. http://www.clear-profit.com/samplestories/cpoct0506.htm. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  39. ^ "Max Keiser, Ryanair and the eco fears forcing their way onto the share price - Indymedia Ireland". Indymedia.ie. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83266. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
  40. ^ "Eco-fears may hit sales of flights, admits Ryanair". The Hindu (Chennai, India). June 2, 2007. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200706020340.htm. 

[edit] External links

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