Facebook and Goldman Sachs unleashed a tech investing mania this week compared far and wide with the euphoric 1990s dot-com run-up. By arranging a $500 million private investment, at a staggering $50 billion valuation, Goldman at once delayed a Facebook public offering (now expected in 2012), prompted a likely LinkedIn IPO, and thrilled its clients, who clamored for a piece of Mark Zuckerberg's behemoth.
But for all the nostalgia for pre-IPO "friends and family" stock in Pets.com, the dot-com era comparisons are off base. Instead, Goldman's Facebook deal mirrors the subprime collateralized debt obligation deals that blew up entire companies, as well as crater-size hole in our economy. In fact, what Goldman just engineered might well be worse...
the Facebook phenomenon shows us that nothing has changed. Goldman again moved aggressively to get the business--investing $75 million into Facebook early, at a low valuation, through one of its hedge funds, in the same way it used to get CDOs rolling--again will rake in the fees (to the tune of $60 million--upfront) and again will pawn off the overvalued results to its clamoring clients, who don't have nearly as much information as Goldman.
If you're one of those investors, here's the deal in a nutshell: You get to buy shares, forking over 5 percent of any possible gains, on top of a 4 percent placement fee and a 0.5 percent expense reserve fee (so you're down 10 percent before the game starts) in a private company that doesn't have to disclose any pertinent financial information to you or any regulator for 15 months. For the privilege, Goldman gets its eight-digit windfall.
The rich Goldman clients aren't allowed out until 2013. But Goldman is....The rich Goldman clients who must pony up a minimum $2 million investment aren't allowed out until 2013. No exceptions. Ditto Facebook employees (although they were allowed to cash out about $100 million last year). But Goldman is. Whenever it wants "without notice to the fund or investors in the fund."
CDOs were private, unregulated, overvalued, disclosure-lite, fee-intensive deals. The Facebook deal is private, unregulated, overvalued, disclosure-lite, and fee intensive. CDOs sold like mad-- until they didn't. That can happen here. At the end of the holding period, there may be no bid for Facebook shares anywhere near the price paid. Plus, by that time all the enthusiastic global users of Facebook may have dropped it for thenextgreatfad.com taking the advertiser money along with them.
The Facebook deal sucks so badly that one of Goldman Sachs' own funds didn't want a single share of it. Richard Friedman, who runs the money for past and present Goldman partners, among others, said, thanks, but no thanks. That should tell everyone something...
By the time a particular design is patented, it's undergone a lot of refinement from a simple idea.
You seem to be rooted firmly in the 1970's.
Animation delivered in the context of HTML/HTTP One-Click Dating via photos "One Way Public Relationship"
Also, duration. Patents were 12 years, when I were young. No one owns an idea. It is the distorting cult of narcissism, which has eaten a hole through the middle of this civilisation, to believe such.
Rent seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity, such as by gaining control of land and other pre-existing natural resources, or by imposing burdensome regulations or other government decisions that may affect consumers or businesses.
Because rents are the easiest and most secure kind of income, it is natural for people to want income from rents rather than principally from profits or wages, and to want rents that involve the least risk and labor as enterprises. This motive is called "rent-seeking," and there is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, those who collect rents in an economy serve the valuable function of seeking to maintain and preserve capital assets [1]. It becomes wrong when rent-seeking means trying to collect rents off of capital that is not the rightful possession of the rent-seeker. This can be legally accomplished through the means that secure the rights of property in the first place: politics and the law. Through political influence people can be given ownership of things that are not their property, or should not be anyone's property. The theory of rent-seeking began with the economist Gordon Tullock.
"Theft" of intellectual property is in some situations, the proper, sane and moral response to systematised and institutional abuse of the limited monopoly granted to ideas and expressions for the original intent of fostering creativity and innovation. Once "intellectual property" becomes for intents and purposes indistinguishable from real estate, it represents a form of abusive coercion which misplaces rent-seeking behaviour as the objective of granting patent and copyright - not the incidental incentive for works of interest in common.
Government, in the form it takes in "modern, western economies" is merely the "rent-a-cop" for enforcement of business wishes. It is also the convenient foil, used by these oligarchal and meta-legal plutocrats, to misdirect blame and frustration of the populace - who are trained to see government as the cause of their oppressions, not the instrument used by their oppressor.
As provided by Fakebook. They unilaterally rescind this, for posting material counter to Zionist hate and colonial extremism. Or for exposing the criminally fraudulent basis for the Federal Reserve Bank and un-coined "fiat money".
These are both among the many topics that have caused users to find their accounts and groups "disappeared" by Frakbuch.
Fortunately, this nonsense will sound completely foolish in a few short years, as "The Social Network" goes the way of CIS, AOL and MySpace....
Slashdot Mirror
Jewboy.
Well we are all "Search Josephine"
Scr@wed... :-)
In capitals, like this?
Did they pull the crown from the hands of the Pope, himself at the coronation ceremony, and declare - as did Napoleon - "I am King!"
Jell-O does not matter, in a German universe.
Horns and Hooves.
Otherwise it's not food.
It's what food eats.
You sure you're not Max Cannon?
Who wants to give it to that weepy bitch, really? :-)
Cue the Bubble Machine!
Facebook and Goldman Sachs unleashed a tech investing mania this week compared far and wide with the euphoric 1990s dot-com run-up. By arranging a $500 million private investment, at a staggering $50 billion valuation, Goldman at once delayed a Facebook public offering (now expected in 2012), prompted a likely LinkedIn IPO, and thrilled its clients, who clamored for a piece of Mark Zuckerberg's behemoth.
But for all the nostalgia for pre-IPO "friends and family" stock in Pets.com, the dot-com era comparisons are off base. Instead, Goldman's Facebook deal mirrors the subprime collateralized debt obligation deals that blew up entire companies, as well as crater-size hole in our economy. In fact, what Goldman just engineered might well be worse...
the Facebook phenomenon shows us that nothing has changed. Goldman again moved aggressively to get the business--investing $75 million into Facebook early, at a low valuation, through one of its hedge funds, in the same way it used to get CDOs rolling--again will rake in the fees (to the tune of $60 million--upfront) and again will pawn off the overvalued results to its clamoring clients, who don't have nearly as much information as Goldman.
If you're one of those investors, here's the deal in a nutshell: You get to buy shares, forking over 5 percent of any possible gains, on top of a 4 percent placement fee and a 0.5 percent expense reserve fee (so you're down 10 percent before the game starts) in a private company that doesn't have to disclose any pertinent financial information to you or any regulator for 15 months. For the privilege, Goldman gets its eight-digit windfall.
The rich Goldman clients aren't allowed out until 2013. But Goldman is. ...The rich Goldman clients who must pony up a minimum $2 million investment aren't allowed out until 2013. No exceptions. Ditto Facebook employees (although they were allowed to cash out about $100 million last year). But Goldman is. Whenever it wants "without notice to the fund or investors in the fund."
CDOs were private, unregulated, overvalued, disclosure-lite, fee-intensive deals. The Facebook deal is private, unregulated, overvalued, disclosure-lite, and fee intensive. CDOs sold like mad-- until they didn't. That can happen here. At the end of the holding period, there may be no bid for Facebook shares anywhere near the price paid. Plus, by that time all the enthusiastic global users of Facebook may have dropped it for thenextgreatfad.com taking the advertiser money along with them.
The Facebook deal sucks so badly that one of Goldman Sachs' own funds didn't want a single share of it. Richard Friedman, who runs the money for past and present Goldman partners, among others, said, thanks, but no thanks. That should tell everyone something...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-07/goldmans-facebook-voodoo-why-its-social-media-deal-is-worse-than-toxic-mortgages/?cid=columnists
"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy."
--David Korten
By the time a particular design is patented, it's undergone a lot of refinement from a simple idea.
You seem to be rooted firmly in the 1970's.
Animation delivered in the context of HTML/HTTP
One-Click
Dating via photos
"One Way Public Relationship"
Also, duration. Patents were 12 years, when I were young. No one owns an idea. It is the distorting cult of narcissism, which has eaten a hole through the middle of this civilisation, to believe such.
Trust me.
Now you've thought of it, they WILL be taxed - to pay debts incurred to private banks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking
Rent seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity, such as by gaining control of land and other pre-existing natural resources, or by imposing burdensome regulations or other government decisions that may affect consumers or businesses.
http://www.friesian.com/rent.htm
Because rents are the easiest and most secure kind of income, it is natural for people to want income from rents rather than principally from profits or wages, and to want rents that involve the least risk and labor as enterprises. This motive is called "rent-seeking," and there is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, those who collect rents in an economy serve the valuable function of seeking to maintain and preserve capital assets [1]. It becomes wrong when rent-seeking means trying to collect rents off of capital that is not the rightful possession of the rent-seeker. This can be legally accomplished through the means that secure the rights of property in the first place: politics and the law. Through political influence people can be given ownership of things that are not their property, or should not be anyone's property. The theory of rent-seeking began with the economist Gordon Tullock.
"Theft" of intellectual property is in some situations, the proper, sane and moral response to systematised and institutional abuse of the limited monopoly granted to ideas and expressions for the original intent of fostering creativity and innovation. Once "intellectual property" becomes for intents and purposes indistinguishable from real estate, it represents a form of abusive coercion which misplaces rent-seeking behaviour as the objective of granting patent and copyright - not the incidental incentive for works of interest in common.
She became interested about the time this story mentioned "penetration".
In Soviet Russia, Ice Penetrates YOU!
You have taken the wrong-coloured pill...
Government, in the form it takes in "modern, western economies" is merely the "rent-a-cop" for enforcement of business wishes. It is also the convenient foil, used by these oligarchal and meta-legal plutocrats, to misdirect blame and frustration of the populace - who are trained to see government as the cause of their oppressions, not the instrument used by their oppressor.
Phantom Menace.
I defer to your experience. :-)
"Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken."
--Book of Chao
And a name change. If you really want to find evidence of paranormal emanations?
I suggest "Venckman"...
Heh.
Those names make me want to dust-off the Courier HST and fireup Citadel or Waffle.
Rathead. Just Say Yes.
Lunatic Labs.
As provided by Fakebook. They unilaterally rescind this, for posting material counter to Zionist hate and colonial extremism. Or for exposing the criminally fraudulent basis for the Federal Reserve Bank and un-coined "fiat money".
These are both among the many topics that have caused users to find their accounts and groups "disappeared" by Frakbuch.
Fortunately, this nonsense will sound completely foolish in a few short years, as "The Social Network" goes the way of CIS, AOL and MySpace....
I actually "tossed off" this post before RTFA. And that's exactly what Rushkoff proposes as a model!
We ran a FIDO sub-net for years - NIRVANANet. One of the first FIDO's to echo into USENET altspace, I think...
I propose a name for the coming, fully distributed, post-Internet peering protocol: SAMIZDATA.
It's a bird, NO! a plane?
NO!
It's FIDONet!
We call it Riding the Gravy Train...
(Oh by the way, which one's Pink?)
How could using the Zune for duplicating the entire Apple business model fail?
The strategy worked before...
First he was just an MC/Rapper...
Then and Actor,
Now? He's a scientific observatory!