For almost two years, Sam Antar (convicted felon and former CFO of Crazy Eddie) has been writing about Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and his questions about their financial reporting and disclosures. I became interested in the company’s financial statements and SEC filings a few months later and began blogging about Overstock and nutty CEO Patrick Byrne as well.

One constant since then has been the criticism of fans of Patrick Byrne and Overstock. Byrne has been trying to silence his critics, and even went so far as to hire cyberstalker Judd Bagley to threaten and intimidate the company’s critics.

Today I received some interesting information on United First Financial, the company selling the $3,500 Money Merge Account. Here is a listing of all UFF agents (warning: large file download), showing that there are 59,703 agents on the rolls.

The fee to sign up as an agent is $175. Multiply that by 59,703 agents, and you see that the company has brought in over $10.4 million just in agent fees. Not a bad payday just for allowing people to sell overpriced, ineffective software.

Whether from dishonesty, incompetence, or a bit of both, the big $700 billion “bailout bill” that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson begged lawmakers to approve is falling apart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Michelle Malkin writes:

The 2006 lawsuit against A&E by Richard Davis and Trademark Properties of the “Flip This House” reality show has concluded with a jury verdict. After five hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Davis $4 million.

David alleged that he and A&E had a verbal agreement to split all revenue from Flip This House 50/50. After the conclusion of one season, A&E denied that they had a verbal agreement. Davis and his crew refused to film any further shows. A&E found crappy replacements, and Davis took the show to TLC, calling it “The Real Estate Pros.”

Of course, A&E is saying they’ll appeal.

In a lame, half-hearted attempt to counteract the truths posted here about Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth, the company has started an “official” blog. The blog tells readers next to nothing, but is a place for STE brokers to high-five each other about the company.

From Loren Steffy at the Houston Chronicle:

I have plenty of gripes about politicians. Probably my biggest issue is their widespread inability to live within their means… that is, create a budget that works based upon the tax dollars coming in. Less money coming in means that less money should be spent. It’s not a highly complicated concept. It’s just basic math.

Earlier today I wrote an article on WalletPop.com about the ever-growing bailouts being handed out by the federal government. Specifically, I’m a little ticked off by the AIG bailout, which was at $85 million about a month ago, and now sits at $150 billion. (Yes, that’s almost double.)

I suggested that the insurance industry and credit card companies would soon be asking for bailouts of their own.

But news late this afternoon may mean that the credit card companies don’t have to ask for bailouts after all! All they have to do is pretend to be banks! The Wall Street Journal reports that American Express (yes, the credit card company) has gotten approval from the Federal Reserve to become a bank holding company. That means they have immediate access to the $700 billion TARP (bailout) program.

Last week AmEx reported quarterly profits were down, and they were trimming about 10% of their employees (7,000 of them). The company also reported a $1.4 billion charge for credit losses, with larger charges expected in the next two quarters.

Plan on seeing Visa, MasterCard, and Discover asking to be pretend banks too. They’d be fools not to try it and have a chance at getting their hands on some federal money.

ShopToEarn reports that it has 45,000 “members.” I am interpreting that to include website owners, business builders, and brokers. Of those members, 10,000 of them, or 22% will be paid a commission on November 21st for October activity. That means 78% of people have earned no commission (despite claims that everyone can make money in STE!)

ShopToEarn and ShopToEarth recently communicated the following to its members:

Talk about how many times you’ve SCORED! and not about how much you’ve earned!

Based on advice from Counsel, it is very important that we focus on how many times we’ve SCORED! as opposed to the money that thousands are earning. Please make sure those doing Overviews in a public forum are aware of this. Staying consistent with talking about the times we’ve SCORED! and the many lifestyle enhancements as opposed to the money thousands are earning. This will have a greater impact on our business as time will surely tell!. This will protect the long term viability of the Company.