{"id":1572,"date":"2008-06-06T09:52:20","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T15:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2010-06-12T22:18:47","modified_gmt":"2010-06-13T04:18:47","slug":"note-to-executives-prone-to-spin-and-deflect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/note-to-executives-prone-to-spin-and-deflect\/","title":{"rendered":"Note to executives prone to spin and deflect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ethisphere has published its 2008 list of the <a href=\"http:\/\/ethisphere.com\/wme2008\/\">World&#8217;s Most Ethical Companies<\/a>. One of the guiding principles in putting this list together:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The World\u2019s Most Ethical Companies are the businesses that respond not with a PR campaign, but with real action, such as complete transparency for the public and significant effort given to fixing the core problem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Do you think Patrick Byrne and his three-ring circus are listening? This is by no means unique to him and Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK). But it sure still applies to them.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Questions about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/04\/30\/overstockcoms-unusual-financial-statements-and-disclosures\/\">irregularities<\/a> in the company&#8217;s financial statements, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/06\/02\/overstockcom-is-doing-better-if-ebitda-is-worse-than-they-reported\/\">disclosures<\/a>, and earnings calls are never met with straightforward answers. Overstock.com is in no way transparent. Spinning and deflecting are Patrick Byrne&#8217;s specialties. Everything has multiple meanings, questions are not answered fully, and criticism is met with lawsuits, threats, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2007\/08\/05\/more-on-overstockcom-stalking-teenage-blogger\/\">cyberstalking<\/a>. There is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/04\/25\/video-of-patrick-byrne-discussing-the-sith-lords-fax-machine-at-cnbc\/\">grand conspiracy<\/a> against Wacky Patty, and criticism of the company that has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/06\/02\/no-profitability-to-maintain-at-overstockcom\/\">never turned a profit<\/a> is all a part of the Sith Lord&#8217;s plan.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/05\/30\/patrick-byrne-ceo-of-overstockcom-is-a-crook-according-to-himself\/\">Patrick<\/a> is consistently in the running for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/news\/story\/worst-ceo-year\/story.aspx?guid=%7B28A849CF-A79F-4D6F-9568-6B0A2D37E471%7D\">America&#8217;s worst CEO<\/a>, the company never turns a profit, and Overstock.com would never even be considered for inclusion on this list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethisphere has published its 2008 list of the World&#8217;s Most Ethical Companies. One of the guiding principles in putting this list together: The World\u2019s Most Ethical Companies are the businesses that respond not with a PR campaign, but with real [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraud-news-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-pm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}