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People & Power
Keiser produced ten short documentary films covering aspects of financial markets for Al Jazeera's series People & Power.[8] The 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] and Focus on Locusts.[17]
| Max Keiser | |
|---|---|
 Max Keiser in a London taxi | |
| Born | Timothy Maxwell Keiser January 23, 1960 New Rochelle, New York |
| Education | NYU |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Notable credit(s) | Hollywood Stock Exchange,People & Power, The Oracle with Max Keiser, Karmabanque |
| Relatives | German and Scottish Ancestry, Hugh Maxwell, V 1777-1860 |
| Website | |
| http://maxkeiser.com | |
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] He hosted the New Year's Eve special, The Keiser's Business Guide to 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live.[3] Keiser presented a season of The Oracle with Max Keiseron BBC World News. Previously he produced and appeared regularly in the TV series People & Poweron the Al-Jazeera English network. He also presents a weekly show about finance and markets on London's Resonance FM, as well as writing forThe Huffington Post.[4]
In addition to his broadcasting work, Keiser is known for his invention of "Virtual Specialist Technology", a software system used by theHollywood Stock Exchange.
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[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] Alongside Michael R. Burns, he co-created the Hollywood Stock Exchange, [6] which allows traders to exchange virtual securities, such as "MovieStocks" and "StarBonds", with convertible virtual currency, the "Hollywood Dollar."
Keiser is also the co-founder of HSX films, which went on to make almost a dozen films includingMixed Signals, Six-String Samurai, Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 and Girl. The company was bought by Ignite Entertainment/Lionsgate Entertainment.
[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 inChristchurch, 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] The 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] and Focus on Locusts.[17]
[edit]The Oracle with Max Keiser
A pilot episode was produced for Al-Jazeera English titled The Oracle. The show was developed into a series for BBC World News.[18] The series first aired on 9 January 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 theRT network. The 30-minute program is produced three times a week. Stacy Herbert (recently announced on a July 2012 episode as his fiancé) 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. Keiser called for a "fatwā" 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] andMcDonald's.
The Karmabanque hedge fund project was designed to simultaneously short-sell companies while funnelling profits into environmental and ethical-business pressure groups which further act to drive down the price. Describing the project Keiser stated, "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 travelled to Milan and Venice to find out how CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady and his fellow CIA 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 Mr. Lady was found guilty in a Milan court. He was sentenced on 9 November 2009 to nine years in prison according to the Guardian.[citation needed]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 JPMorgan "the biggest financial terrorist on Wall St" in relation to their alleged manipulation of the price of silver.[30] Keiser started a campaign called "Crash JP Morgan - buy silver",[31][32][33] whereby people buy silver, thus raising its price and leaving JPMorgan with a huge short position to cover, the margin of which are collateralized by JPMorgan's own stock price, bankrupting itself. Based on the collateralization of silver by the price of its shares and his allegation that JPMorgan's position is an overwhelmingly large naked short position, Keiser predicted that the a per-ounce silver price exceeding JPMorgan's stock price will not only crash JPMorgan 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 JPMorgan 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 against his organization[37] and petitioned sponsorsCalvert Investments and KLD Research & Analytics to withdraw from the project.[38] 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%. 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 Hindupublished an article in which Howard Millar, Ryanair deputy chief executive, admitted that his company may be vulnerable to environmental pressure groups, stating, "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
- Error account - a term often mentioned by Max Keiser
- Central bank or Reserve bank
- Gold standard - where paper currency is backed up by the value of gold
- Hollywood Accounting
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