Ruthless: How Enraged Investors Reclaimed Their Investments and Beat Wall Street

Chapter 8. Armies of the Unseen

These guys are doing more to destroy capitalism than Marx.

—Nell Minow, co-founder, The Corporate Library

With the coming hints of spring, I could sense a kind of groundswell. Not the big hammer I was looking for. My avenue to big clout had yet to be captured. The avenue would involve Harry Newton's web site. But something was holding me back from making the connection. This puzzled me. The stakes were high. Maybe I feared rejection. I had never before been afraid to approach someone with an idea, no matter how far out the idea might be. But each time I picked up the phone to call Mr. Newton, something stalled in my head. Until I overcame this block, I would be forced to continue on my own, writing commentary in a scattershot fashion on a variety of web sites. I was enlisting the identities and active cooperation of more ARS victims. Sooner or later my "Harry hesitancy" would end, and my efforts would come into sharper focus. I desperately needed to make that connection. But I just wasn't ready.

Still, something positive, something energetic, was starting to happen. Pissed-off investors were at last looking for ways to make noise. Except for the banks, who were still raking in fees on nonexistent auctions, no one could be happy about the ARS situation. Yet there was a growing restlessness that was beginning to push back. It was exactly what I was hoping for.

I was receiving ever-increasing volumes of e-mail. Some messages were from investors seeking advice; ...