Facebook, One Year Later: What Really Happened in the Biggest IPO Flop Ever. From the Atlantic Monthly:
After Facebook’s disastrous debut, the preferred clients of big banks walked away with huge profits. How? Public documents and interviews with dozens of investment bankers and research analysts reveal that the Street caught wind of something the public didn’t. The social network and the banks told half the story. Here is the other half.
Facebook revised its numbers down just before the IPO. But only a few found out about the downed numbers. They managed to sell Facebook short and they made a killing. I don’t know how they shorted Facebook because I remember vividly telling everyone in this column to not buy Facebook. And I remember rushing around Wall Street trying to sell Facebook short and being told that there were rules about not shorting an IPO for 30 days. I have no ideas how the big guys got away with it. And this article doesn’t explain. But you do get the idea that there are two types of people on Wall Street — them and us. And we get screwed.
For the full article, click here.
Good stuff to watch and read:
+ A two hour interview with John Doerr, famed venture capitalist with the firm of Kleiner Perkins. I found the interview fascinating. There are many things we can learn from Doerr. Absolutely worth watching. I took pages of notes. You can watch a bit and return to it. Click here and scroll down a little.
+ The Obamacare shock. It’s not as bad as many think. Click here.
+ Obamacare’s other surprise. How the Act is causing an explosion of entrepreneurial startups, as we begin to computerize medical records. Click here.
+ Paul Krugman on How to Fix the Economy – and Why It’s Easier Than You Think. I agreed with him. Click here.
Running a business? Photos and videos sell. Your distributors will run your photos. Give them many and give them closeups for their web sites. Meantime, put videos on YouTube of your products performing. You don’t a dedicated video camera to make videos. Most new camera will shoot videos. You need a tripod, however.
YouTube has become the world’s greatest free advertising medium. Use it.
In-Flight Thefts On The Rise
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) – Cases of passengers breaking into other people’s carry-on bags during flights are on the rise at Los Angeles International Airport. Since 2011, airport police have received 130 reports of theft aboard flights, which includes items taken during the flight or after the plane landed.
Virginia Blumenthal of Riverside said the in-flight crime was something she never imagined.
“I did not know what I was doing with my carry-on,” she said.
Last year, the 65-year-old criminal defense attorney was on her way to LAX from Buenos Aires. She said after the flight landed, “I got my carry-on luggage out and the lady across the aisle said to me, `Is that your carry-on?’ I said, `Yes, why?’ She said, `Because a man, when you went to the restroom, took it out and took some things out of it.'”
Blumenthal said the thief got away with jewelry, a camera and her iPad.
Although she reported the theft, she never recovered the items.
The attorney told CBS2’s Suraya Fadel she now travels differently.
“I now carry any valuables, passport, money, jewelry, in my purse.that I keep directly under my seat and I take it to the restroom with me,” said Blumenthal.
This happened to me once. A thief grabbed my camera bag as we were leaving the plane. I never got the bag nor the camera and the lenses back.
The French Tennis is on. You can watch every match three and more times. Try ESPN, ESPN2, The Tennis Channel, NBC, CBS, etc. ESPN oor ESPN2 runs the original match in the early morning. The Tennis Channel runs re-runs all through the day. Tell your friends not to tell you who won. make sure you watch in HD.
Bad British humor.
On a train from London to Manchester , an Australian was berating the Englishman sitting across from him in the compartment.
“You English are too stuffy. You set yourselves apart too much. You think your stiff upper lip makes you above the rest of us.
“Look at me…I have Italian blood, Greek blood, a little Irish blood, and some Aborigine blood.. What do you say to that ?”
The Englishman nodded and replied, “Awfully sporting of your mother, old chap!”
Harry Newton who had a glorious weekend playing tennis, resting, reading, writing and cleaning out the gutters.
Home Depot has some snap-on gutter covers, about $3 for a 3 foot section. Worth putting on – this will save you a LOT of time with gutter work.
Krugman is a mouthpiece sent out to try to put whitewash on a …..
Anyone who has kept up with this should know that any chance of it working is going to be painful and expensive if you actually can get it.
When you ignore our incredibly large debt and agree with Krugman that the government,which is already bloated and corrupt, should do more, it’s time for me to move on.
We just had another bridge fall down. Would you rather not spend any money on them and let them eventually all fall down? Along with the resulting deaths?
I wish the Propaganda Machine (“Debt’s gonna get your Momma”) was public and I could invest in it. I has more buyers than Coke.
But we spent almost a Trillion dollars on rebuilding our infrastructure. At least that is what we were told. Now we know better.