[gonna get me-self stuck on Facebook] vampire squid are similar to bankers for many reasons.
2) they're not what people say they are
3) they're blood-sucking killers
'they have to get up and be a self-made man like me' they say.
They're all hookered up and coked up, the 911 in the garage...
2
"Bond Recoveries Or Chocolate": Ivory Coast Issues Ultimatum With Cocoa Export Ban, As Chocolate Prices Set To Surge Monday
Submitted by Tyler Durden on Jan23/2011 14:43 -0500
When a week ago we observed the Onionesque reality of life in the Ivory Coast, where deposed president Gbagbo is threatening to wipe out bondholders of $2.3 billion in debt (Corporate Ticker: NUTZ) unless he becomes formally recognized, we made the following bold prediction: "we are sure that Blythe Masters and her team were recently in Yamoussoukro discussing the most effective way to corner the cocoa market (paper Cocoa ETF?), thus getting the price of the sweet powder up by a few trillion percent (in exchange for a nice 25% of all upside going to Jamie Dimon's firm of course)." Sure enough, when it comes to our track record of macabre predictions we continue to be near 100%. The FT has just reported that Alassane Ouattara, Laurent Gbagbo's opponent in the presidential election (and the man formally acknowledged by the UN as the country's president) has just imposed a one-month export ban of cocoa, ostensibly in an attempt to oust Laurent Gbagbo. In other words, the international community has to choose: bond recoveries or chocolate. That said, we are certain that it is none other than noted commodity market cornering expert JPM that can claim league table advisory credit for what according to the FT will be a 10% jump in the price of cocoa on opening Monday. The immediate retaliation by Gbagbo will most certainly be to force a technical default on the country's bonds which are already in their grace period, and start a localized mini liquidity (and solvency) crisis in Africa... As if the developed world did not have enough of those as is. And in the meantime, we sense a great disturbance in the inflationary Force, as if millions of fatty voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. Prepare for the next round of food inflation worldwide. [and so on] at:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bond-recoveries-or-chocolate-ivory-coast-issues-ultimatum-cocoa-export-ban-chocolate-prices-
vampire squid on your face...book
Billionaire Jim Clark: "The Goldman-Facebook Deal Is Just Another Way For The Firm To Make Money From Its Clients"
Courtney Comstock | Jan. 24, 2011, 6:01 PM | 4,788 | comment 14
clark-hintzeAfter everything that's happened, Goldman Sachs probably wishes it had never pitched 70-year old billionaire Jim Clark (the founder of Netscape) on the firm's big Facebook deal.
The billionaire founder and investor told Bloomberg Markets Magazine that when he got the pitch email from Goldman, he was instantly "irked."
Now, he's going after Goldman for pitching him on Facebook with a bad price and high fees on top of it, just meant to rob him of more money. And he's spilling tons of details that Goldman probably doesn't want its investors to know -- including the fact that he received a better offer for Facebook elsewhere. And how his Goldman brokers called John Paulson a "bit player" in 2006.
Not surprisingly, the firm "declined to make Blankfein or any other executives available for comment for this story."
Clark definitely has a grudge. Goldman already lost him a lot of money, he says. In 2009, he "angrily" yanked most of the $400 million he had invested in GSAM, Goldman's asset management unit.
and 3 from zerohedge.com
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-goldman-sachs-vampire-squid-facebook%E2%80%99s-face
Submitted by Wall St. Cheat Sheet
Is Goldman Sachs a Vampire Squid on Facebook’s Face?
There’s confidence, then there’s bravado.
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is acting more insecure than ever with an incredibly pompous payment structure for private placement shares of social networking site Facebook. According to Bloomberg Markets Magazine (via Business Insider), the investment banking deal doesn’t have only placement agent fees, it also includes a Vampire Squid Clause:
The firm would levy a 4% placement fee on clients, plus a .5% “expense reserve” fee. It would also require investors to surrender 5% of any profits, known as “carried interest,” according to a Goldman Sachs document.
