This is probably more about MSFT having large amounts of cash in Europe that they cannot repatriate without taking a huge tax hit (double taxation).

Privatisation and free market are two very different things ldo. Having private companies bid on government contracts doesnt stop it from being private business.

Yeah, i dont get why the market is so dumb to jump onto investing in linkedin and facebook and the like.

What could possibly go wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com

Social media is totally different this time though. Future winning companies like Twitter and LinkedIn synergized web 2.0 for full execution of the new digital paradigm where meta-social data is king something something blah blah meow chow, and having a business model that involves exchanging things for resources is so pre 9/11. So it's different.

I'm guessing that this was done via some investment banks (GOOG did it differently) and they have tight control over the shares being floated for awhile. Also stock valuations are basically about future earnings prospects not past. A lot of folks said AMZN was overvalued when it had a market cap of $8 billion. Today it's something like $89 billion. A lot of folks said GOOGs IPO price was way too much at between $80 and $100. Today it's $529 or so. Then again a lot of people said ATHM was a good buy with $1 billion market cap. Today it doesn't exist.

Best people to ask about advice on Linkdn shorting on this site are DesertCat, Ray Zee, or David Sklansky FWIW.

without looking at the link, the bolded is an interesting tag line, does this mean it offers a little bit of savings or no savings?

I'm not that familiar with LinkedIn, but Facebook has a huge audience of people giving away their personal information. That's a huge resource for advertisers that is extremely valuable... see: Google. They are exchanging money for resources.

Put options are an excellent way of shorting something while capping the maximum potential loss.

Unfortunately LNKD has no options, afaik. And even if they did the volatility premium would probably be a bit insane right now.

My office is near the courts in NYC. Walking outside just now, I saw the largest media contingent I have ever seen outside of the courts, apparently due primarily to Mr. IMF.

He's getting more attention (right now) than did Madoff or any other celebrity I can think of off-hand.

Must be due to our affection for the French.

$50 says the majority of those reporters are foreign.

You know what would be ****ing awesome? If the government didn't ship a bunch of money and weapons to both sides of that senseless, ******ed conflict.

I don't think the US sends the Palestinians anything, but the EU does.

This. This guy is all over the (US) news but nothing like madoff.

Indirectly, I'm pretty sure we do. Like most violent conflicts our freedom bombs are used by both sides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

West Bank/Gaza 7th on the list (2009)

Well my friend sent me this link last night: http://iraqforsale.org/index.php Which talks about how effed up things are with Blackwater and contratctors in Iraq. I don't really disagree with that, but it doesn't seem to address the whole inside job thing at all.

I was kind of hoping she'd forget it. But the deal was if she sent me something I'd send her something back. So I sent her some choice stuff covering a few things we had talked about from the 911 myths site and from popular mechanics. We'll see what happens.

Maybe I should just get her in touch with Jiggs.

As a non-God fearing pinko leftie LIBERAL LIBERAL LIBERAL who works in education, if we're trading in stereotypes and what not- I'd actually be a lot more tempted to lay the blame here at the wussy liberals.

Obama didnt redraw the borders, he just backs a return to the '67 borders, as do most international organisations and countries.

Its awesome news for the US to finally be putting pressure on Israel.

Suzzer,

The Truther case is so weak that the issue isn't so much that you're friends with a Truther. You're friends with a stupid person. If you're cool with that, it just means there's things you won't walk about with them. If you're not, then you shouldn't be friends with stupid people. Trying to actually engage them on the issue means having a debate on a level that they are not equipped to participate.

Meh. Not really -- companies have a lot of ways to deal with these kinds of tax issues.

Some lessons are learned the hard way. Some never at all.

Send her a link to the south park episode

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full...e-urinal-deuce

And suzzer, AK is right here imo, this is not going to end well.

I've known this girl for 15+ years. She used to be a director at the company I work for now and she was very good at her job. I've done side projects with her that have turned out successful. She is extremely smart (probably has a higher IQ than most on this forum) and I've always considered her very pragmatic (which is why this just blew me away). I consider her one of my best friends, and we've never had a problem engaging on any number of subjects. But basically this one issue is going to render politics completely off limits going forward, and probably chill our friendship to some degree, which sucks.

Which is why I actually care so much. I wouldn't be posting this otherwise. This isn't just some casual acquaintance. She lives 3 blocks from me and we see each other a lot. So I'm just asking for some "why 9/11 is a myth for dummies" link, which I got. I don't need the standard Dids incomplete-information castigation of my personal decisions.

The thing that sucks is that this is two very intelligent female friends this has happened with. The other one has a masters in library science and runs a library branch. Also she kicks my ass at Scrabble. But she's married to this dopey artist, and all his whole scene are casual Truthers I think. I think it's easier for women to be very smart, but still very very fuzzy about engineering-type stuff or how the world actually works. She kept pestering me about what I thought about 9/11 and I finally told her because I respect her as a friend. That one was probably a mistake. I don't intend to pursue it with the other girl, but I did promise if she sent a link I would send one back.

JFC just surrender with something like "Oh that's really interesting I am gonna have to do some more research" and then never talk about it again.