And this time they are applying what they’ve learned from the previous two bubbles.

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.

[...]

Yet 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.

[...]

Goldman does seem to have learned one lesson. One of the problems brought up by the Abacus CDO deal that prompted the $550 million fine was the idea that Goldman was helping one client short the deal against another client. To avoid another uncomfortable SEC incident, and the nuisance of public scrutiny, they’ve put the sell possibility right out front: a disclaimer allowing them to dump their shares, or perhaps short them, at any point. Which is extra convenient, since Goldman is privy to far more information about Facebook than the people they would sell them to: insider trading in the public markets—upfront and legal here.

So, just to recap: Goldman is going to make a shit ton of money off of this deal by legally robbing investors and nobody gives a shit.

Looks like it’s time for me to quit jerking-off to pictures of old girlfriends and delete my Facebook account.

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Tags: Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street
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And nobody seems to care:

The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers’ colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud.

[...]

If the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case is proved – and it is aggressively rebutted by Goldman – the charge is that Goldman’s vice-president Fabrice Tourre created a dud financial instrument packed with valueless sub- prime mortgages at the instruction of hedge fund client Paulson, sold it to investors knowing it was valueless, and then allowed Paulson to profit from the dud financial instrument.

[...]

Brutally, the banks knowingly gamed the system to grow their balance sheets ever faster and with even less capital underpinning them in the full knowledge that everything rested on the bogus claim that their lending was now much less risky. That was not all they were doing. As Michael Lewis describes in The Big Short, credit default swaps had been deliberately created as an asset class by the big investment banks to allow hedge funds to speculate against collateralised debt obligations. The banks were gaming the regulators and investors alike – and they knew full well what they were doing.

[...]

Now it has all collapsed, to be bailed out by western taxpayers. The banks are resisting reform – and want to cling on to the business practices and business model that has so appallingly failed. It is obvious why: it makes them very rich. The politicians tread carefully, only proposing what the bankers say is congruent with their definition of what banking should be.

Let me repeat that last sentence for you:

The politicians tread carefully, only proposing what the bankers say is congruent with their definition of what banking should be.

That sentence is the reason why I’m not surprised at the pussified bill put forth by Chris Dodd. It’s the reason why I’m not surprised Obama sent Rahm Emanuel to New York to host a private meeting begging investors not to flee the Democratic Party. And it’s the reason why I won’t be surprised when nothing happens to Goldman Sachs.

Because our masters expect us to apologize to them for flinching when they cum on our faces.

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Tags: Goldman Sachs, Pussy Politicians, Thank Zeus It's 4/20, Wall Street
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Because I thought they hated shit like this:

Leading Indian outsourcers such as Tata Consultancy (Bombay:TCS.BO – News), Infosys (Bombay:INFY.BO – News) and Wipro (Bombay:WIPR.BO – News) stand to gain contracts worth about $1 billion in the next one or two years as U.S. banks emerge from the troubled asset relief program, the Economic Times reported on Monday.

he newspaper said JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM – News), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS – News) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS – News) that received approval to buy back government stake worth $68 billion earlier this year are among the firms seeking operational efficiencies by outsourcing non-core IT and back-office projects to India.

Oh, that’s right, they’re too busy protesting health care. And death panels. And communism. And socialism. And Marxism. And anarchism. And Islamofascism. And Nancy Pelosi. And  Harry Reid. And CNN. And MSNBC. And global warming. And the cap-and-trade bill. And the hate crime bill. And gay marriage. And illegal immigrants. And closing Gitmo. And withdrawing from Afghanistan. And trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. And the mistreatment of Sarah Palin by the ‘Liberal Media’.

Did I leave anything out?

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Tags: Bailouts, Goldman Sachs, I wonder if those crazy fucks bitched about trying Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma, JPMorgan, Teabaggers
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Thank God for rich, white men who want to keep our spirits up in this time of economic hardship.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says the U.S. is engaged in an “economic Pearl Harbor.”

In an interview that aired Sunday on “Dateline NBC,” the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said the nation’s economic situation is not as bad as in World War II or the Great Depression, but it’s still pretty severe.

What the shit?  Did he just compare our economy to Pearl Harbor then say it isn’t as bad as World War II?  How…how the fuck can he do that?   Isn’t that like telling a beautiful girl who’s naked and bending over not to worry about the wart on your dick because it isn’t herpes?

And why the fuck is that man eating at Dairy Queen?  He’s worth a total of 62 billion dollars, couldn’t he afford something better?  Like Coldstone or Marble Slab?

Stupid me…I get it.  He’s trying to prove that he is just like everyone else.  Well you know what?

Fuck you Warren Buffett.  Fuck you in your old, dried up asshole.  You were the one who said that the first bailout was a “rescue plan for the American economy” as you invested 5 billion dollars of your own money in Goldman Sachs.  Did we hear anything from you when they used the bailout money to pay their goddamn CEO’s bonuses? Fuck no we didn’t.

So the next time you go eat ice cream at Dairy Queen, I hope that homeless guy who always asks for change when you walk by but you pat your pockets and say you don’t have any, breaks his liquor bottle on the sidewalk and slits your fucking throat while raping you in the ass with his aids infected dick.

You know..just in case you survive the throat slashing…you greedy, old fuck.

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Tags: Bailout, Barack Obama, Dairy Queen, Goldman Sachs, Rescue package, Wall Street, Warren Buffett
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