Karl Denninger is an American technology businessman, finance blogger, and political activist, sometimes referred to as a founding member of the

Tea Party movement The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2007, catapulted into the mainstream by Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign. The movement expanded in resp ...

Technology entrepreneurship

Denninger was the founder and CEO of MCSNet in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Opened as Macro Computer Solutions, Incorporated in 1987, it expanded its service offerings in 1993 to become one of the area's first commercial

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

s. Among its customers was the

Chicago Public Library The Chicago Public Library (CPL) is the public library system that serves the Chicago, City of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It consists of 81 locations, including a central library, three regional libraries, and branches distributed thr ...

, which relied on MCSNet for both

internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

and

web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web ho ...

. In 1997 he led a coalition of ISPs in setting up the Enhanced Domain Name System, a short-lived

alternative DNS root The Internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to associate numeric computer IP addresses with human-readable names. The top level of the domain name hierarchy, the DNS root, contains the top-level domains that appear as the suffixes of all Intern ...

which allowed registrants to add their own

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...

s. Denninger continued to run MCSNet until August 1998, when he sold it to

Winstar Communications Winstar Communications, Inc. (at some point WinStar Communications) was an American telecommunications company that provided broadband services to business customers. Winstar owned and operated a broadband network in 60 major markets in the Unite ...

for an undisclosed amount. After the sale of MCSNet, he moved to

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, where he began to devote more time to stock trading and political activism.

Blogging and political activism

Denninger is a founding contributor to the libertarian-oriented finance blog market-ticker.org, and has used the internet to bring attention to his concerns with the financial system. He now utilizes his blog to sell his home networking daemon and sell the artwork of his daughter. In the aftermath of the March 2008 collapse of

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was an American investment bank, securities trading, and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. After its closure it was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chas ...

, he helped found the website FedUpUSA.org He came to national attention for the criticisms of the

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing fi ...

which he posted on FedUpUSA.org in September that year. Of special concern to Denninger was the

over-the-counter Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid pres ...

trading of credit default swaps, as well as the high leverage of financial institutions; his objections to the bailout plan stemmed from the fact that it did not address either of these issues. He has also spoken out against

high-frequency trading High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading in finance characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools.Lin, Tom C. W. " ...

, particularly in the aftermath of the 2010 Flash Crash. Denninger was also one of the early members of the

, sometimes referred to as a founder. On January 20, 2009, the day of President Obama's first inauguration, he published a blog post calling on readers to mail

tea bag A tea bag (or teabag) is a small, porous, sealed bag or Packet (container), packet typically containing tea leaves (''Camellia sinensis'') or the leaves of other herbs, which is immersed in water to steeping, steep and make an infusion. Origina ...

s to the White House and Congress on February 1, echoing a suggestion by a commenter on one of his earlier blog posts. However, Denninger later expressed concern with the Tea Party movement, stating in an October 20, 2010, blog post that Republicans had hijacked the movement and perverted its original goals to the standard Republican concerns of "guns, gays and God".

Media appearances

Denninger has been invited as a guest on a variety of television and radio programs. In July 2009, he appeared on ''

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

Reports''. In April 2010, he appeared on the ''

Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...

'' show, where he spoke about the FedUpUSA.org website. In October 2011, he appeared on '' The Dylan Ratigan Show'' on

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

to voice his support for the

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing populist movement against economic inequality, capitalism, corporate greed, big finance, and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial ...

movement. In January 2013, he spoke with

Voice of Russia Voice of Russia (), commonly abbreviated VOR, was the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service from 1993 until 2014, when it was reorganised as Radio Sputnik. Its interval signal was a chime version of 'Majestic' chorus from ...

in an interview covering a variety of topics, including the

United States public debt The "national debt of the United States" is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to treasury security holders. The national debt at a given point in time is the face value of the then outstanding trea ...

, Medicare reform, and his opposition to

Keynesian economics Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomics, macroeconomic theories and Economic model, models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongl ...

Books

* ''Leverage: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World'', Wiley, November 2011, .

References

External links

The Market Ticker
Denninger's financially focused blog
Market Ticker Forum
the blog's user forums
FedUpUSA
site Denninger helped found to bring public awareness regarding financial system and government corruption {{DEFAULTSORT:Denninger, Karl Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American male bloggers American bloggers American computer businesspeople American finance and investment writers Tea Party movement activists 21st-century American non-fiction writers