Patrick M. Byrne

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Patrick M. Byrne is an American businessman, CEO of Overstock.com[wp] and libertarian kook.

Contents

[edit] Naked shorting

In business naked short selling[wp] is essentially the process of selling shares or assets without actually owning them. Of course accusing a person or company of naked shorting is a serious allegation, one that most people would not make without a lot of good evidence, but Patrick M. Byrne is not most people. Byrne has, through his company Overstock, filed two lawsuits against the Rocker Partners and the Equities Research Firm claiming that they both short sold his company and payed for negative press to artificially drive down prices of Overstock.com. As if that weren't enough Byrne also believes in a sort of banking conspiracy out to destroy his company. He has said, "there's been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock, drive it down to $6--$10 ... and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up." He has even referred to the leader of the conspiracy as the "sith lord", but for some reason he was unwilling to name any names[1].

[edit] Education policies

As a libertarian Patrick M. Byrne supports a number of questionable economic policies, including a restriction requiring all public schools to spend 65% of funds on "class education." Unfortunately librarians, school nurses, school lunches and bus drivers don't count as class education meaning that schools would have to cut a number of programs that largely benefit poorer students[2].

Also in the field of education Byrne has come out as a strong supporter of vouchers for private school education, strongly criticizing Jon Huntsman for not supporting the voucher program as much as Byrne had hoped [3].

[edit] Other antics

Patrick Byrne is a notable gun nut. At one point he was arrested for trying to carry a loaded gun through airport security, Byrne claimed that the incident was purely accidental, when asked how he could accidentally put a gun in his bag he responded, "I keep the gun next to my bed every night".

[edit] Footnotes

  1. https://archive.today/20120710222214/http://news.com.com/Overstock+CEO+reflects+on+Cramer+debacle/2100-1030_3-6171494.html
  2. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/education/04solution.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  3. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-518947-schools-friedman.html
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