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The inside story: How Facebook panicked and botched its IPO

There’s been a ton of coverage about the Facebook IPO disaster, but very little of it looks at the crucial point two weeks ago where things went terribly wrong. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Facebook itself made a strategic blunder at that juncture.

Facebook CFO David Ebersman

Facebook CFO David Ebersman

The screw-up resulted in a major disappointment in Facebook’s stock debut: The stock’s 15 percent decline since the IPO last Friday may not in itself be tragic. But worse, lawsuits are flying saying that legal guidelines weren’t followed. And there’s the sad fact that regular mom-and-pop investors were apparently left with the more losses on average than large institutions who got privileged information. This all was aggravated by a separate annoyance: glitches in the Nasdaq stock market trading process, which caused delays in trade and cancel confirmations, among other things.

However, based on a number of interviews VentureBeat has had with observers and other sources close to the process, it’s apparent that Facebook itself may be most to blame for the fallout. Facebook chose to be more furtive in public announcements about its business than it was in private talks with large investors.

The “update”

The decisive action by Facebook came on May 9, three days into the “roadshow,” which is the time when Facebook and its bankers visit major investors in hopes of getting them to buy the IPO stock. On that day, Facebook’s executives, led by chief financial officer David Ebersman, signed off on new language in the company’s updated IPO prospectus.

In that May 9 update, Ebersman decided to use vague language when describing how the company’s second quarter was looking. It was extremely understated, considering what we would later find out. According to the filing, specifically on page 57, Facebook said that it was experiencing the same trend in the second quarter that it had seen in the first quarter, that growth in “daily active users” (DAUs) was increasing more rapidly than the growth in ad impressions, driven by many users’ shift to mobile devices.

wtf?! Asexual Artist Cooks and Serves Own Genitals at Public Banquet from Feast of Fun

An artist in Tokyo cooked and served his own surgically removed genitals to a group of paying customers while a crowd watched on.

It all started with a simple tweet: ““Please retweet. I am offering my male genitals (full penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen…. I will prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location.””

From Calorielab:

On Sunday, April 13, Tokyo illustrator Mao Sugiyama (who goes by the nickname “HC”), publicly seasoned and braised his own genitals on a portable gas cartridge burner, and then served them to five eager diners who each paid about $250 for the meal (a sixth was a no-show). The genitals had been returned to the asexual Sugiyama, frozen and double-bagged in plastic, following elective genital removal surgery on his 22nd birthday in early April.

Also:

Sugiyama had also intended to include his nipples on the menu, but his attempt to burn them off with sodium hydroxide did not result in anything usable.

Read more, including photos that you don’t really want to believe are real.

United Passenger: Airline Lost My Wheelchair, Sent Me One Belonging To Another Passenger

A man in California claims that United Airlines not only lost his wheelchair, but that the airline denies he ever checked one on the plane, all while sending him a replacement wheelchair belonging to a different United passenger.

The man, who flew United for a trip to Mexico in March, says he was on his wheelchair up to the airplane gate, at which point it was checked, only to vanish into the ether.

"I faxed a property request," he tells KTLA. "I sent the tag that was on my luggage that was for my wheelchair, because my wheelchair was taken from the gate up to the plane."

rest at http://consumerist.com/2012/05/united-passenger-airline-lost-my-wheelchair-sent-me-one-belonging-to-another-passenger.html

Ed Schultz Brings National Attention to Florida Voter Roll Purge

Ed Schultz Brings National Attention to Florida Voter Roll Purge

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Anyone who follows this blog regularly may have already read Ken Quinnell's report on Florida Gov. Rick Scott's plan to purge 180,000 Hispanics from the voting rolls in Florida ahead of the 2012 presidential election. This Thursday evening, MSNBC's Ed Schultz thankfully decided to shine a national spotlight on the subject, hopefully before it's too late for those who have received notices from the state to do something about it.

Schultz highlighted this article from The Palm Beach Post News: Fla. Gov. started push to remove voters from rolls:

Florida's quest to identify and remove non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls was started at the direct urging of Gov. Rick Scott, the state's former top elections official said.

Ex-Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who resigned this year, told The Associated Press that Scott asked him whether or not non-U.S. citizens were registered and if those people were voting. Browning explained to the governor during a face-to-face meeting last year that people who register and falsely claim they are citizens can be charged with a crime.

"He says to me — well, people lie," Browning recalled this week. "Yes, people do. But we have always had to err on the side of the voter."

Browning said the conversation prompted state election officials to begin working to identify non-U.S. citizens. The state's initial list — compiled by comparing driver's licenses with voter registration data — showed that as many as 182,000 registered voters were eligible to be in the country but ineligible to vote.

But Browning said he decided against telling local election supervisors right away because he wanted to make sure the information was accurate in order to avoid a "firestorm of press" and criticism. Florida then spent months trying to get access to a federal database that tracks non-U.S. citizens in the country, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not allow it.

"We were not confident enough about the information for this secretary to hang his hat on it," said Browning, who resigned after the Jan. 31 presidential preference primary.

Browning said media reports earlier this year that raised questions whether non-U.S. citizens were on the rolls required the state to keep pushing ahead with the effort.

rest at 

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/ed-schultz-brings-national-attention-flori

Women Will Soon Be Able To Afford The Most Effective Method Of Birth Control As A Result Of Obamacare

" The vast majority of women in the U.S. are not using the most effective method of birth control available, according to a newstudy from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The study finds that the pill is significantly less effective at preventing pregnancy than long-lasting contraceptive methods such as the intrauterine device (IUD), building on earlier research that has drawn the same conclusion. In fact, women using IUDs or implants were a staggering 20 times less likely to get pregnant than women who used shorter contraceptive methods like the pill.

Yet few women in the U.S. currently use this type of contraception because IUDs are often very expensive — with co-pays costing hundreds of dollars — and rarely covered by insurance plans. As the study’s lead author, Dr. Brooke Winner, told Reuters:

Nationally, only about 5 percent are using long-lasting methods like IUDs and implants. We know one of the barriers to why they’re not using them more frequently is up-front costs. If [more] women were using these products nationally, there would be a very significant drop in unintended pregnancies, which would have far-reaching effects."

Chicago Panhandlers File First Amendment Lawsuit

"The First Amendment protects your right to speak your mind, but does that include the right to ask strangers for money? A group of panhandlers in Chicago say that it does.

Eight panhandlers filed a federal suit seeking class action status against the City of Chicago, alleging that police routinely make them move from a high-end section of Michigan Avenue, the Associated Press reported.

All of the plaintiffs live in Chicago and regularly beg for money in the affluent section of what is known as the “Magnificent Mile,” and claim that police intimidate them, threaten to arrest them, and make the false claim their activity is illegal, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The suit contends that panhandling is protected speech under the First Amendment.

Kim Pindak is a plaintiff in the suit who said a police officer told him panhandling was made illegal in the area because it is “a tourist spot” and “there have been too many thefts,” the Sun-Times noted. Another plaintiff, McArthur Hubbard, alleges that a policeman told him he couldn’t ask for money on Michigan Ave. and said “I will take you to jail, and I will take your money, and you can tell that to the judge.”"

loudmouth conservative blowhard @gehrig38 Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios Lays Off Entire Staff #p2 #tcot - begged state for tax credits @espn

" This is probably the death knell for 38 Studios, the video game company whose problems started with a missed loan payment at the beginning of the month. Since then the company has bounced a check to Rhode Island, failed to make payroll, and begged the state for more help in the form of tax credits. Today, one (former) worker told Kotaku that 38 Studios has laid off every last employee and shut down their offices. "

The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Obama on JPMorgan #p2 #tcot

By Robert Reich

The dog that didn’t bark this week, let alone bite, was the President’s response to JP Morgan Chase’s bombshell admission of losing more than $2 billion in risky derivative trades that should never have been made.

“JP Morgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion,” the President said on the television show “The View,” which aired Tuesday, suggesting that a weaker bank might not have survived.

That was it.

Not a word about Jamie Dimon’s tireless campaign to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill; his loud and repeated charge that the Street’s near meltdown in 2008 didn’t warrant more financial regulation; his leadership of Wall Street’s brazen lobbying campaign to delay the Volcker Rule under Dodd-Frank, which is still delayed; and his efforts to make that rule meaningless by widening a loophole allowing banks to use commercial deposits to “hedge” (that is, make offsetting bets) their derivative trades.

Nor any mention Dimon’s outrageous flaunting of Dodd-Frank and of the Volcker Rule by setting up a special division in the bank to make huge (and hugely profitable, when the bets paid off) derivative trades disguised as hedges.  

Nor Dimon’s dual role as both chairman and CEO of JPMorgan (frowned on my experts in corporate governance) for which he collected a whopping $23 million this year, and $23 million in 2010 and 2011 in addition to a $17 million bonus.

Even if Obama didn’t want to criticize Dimon, at the very least he could have used the occasion to come out squarely in favor of tougher financial regulation. It’s the perfect time for him to call for resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act, of which the Volcker Rule – with its giant loophole for hedges — is a pale and inadequate substitute.

And for breaking up the biggest banks and setting a cap on their size, as the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve recommended several weeks ago.

Wall Street’s biggest banks were too big to fail before the bailout. Now, led by JP Morgan Chase, they’re even bigger.  Twenty years ago, the 10 largest banks on the Street held 10 percent of America’s total bank assets. Now they hold over 70 percent.

rest at http://www.nationofchange.org/dog-didn-t-bark-obama-jpmorgan-1337263711

awesome: Josef Miles, 9-Year-Old Boy, Protests Westboro Baptist Church #p2 #tcot

article image
Submitted by Michael Allen on May 17, 2012

In Topeka, Kansas, 9-year-old Josef Miles and his mother Patty Akrouche were walking around the Washburn University campus on Saturday, Graduation Day.

As they returned to their car, they saw Westboro Baptist Church protesters picketing with signs proclaiming God’s hatred for homosexuals and others.

Miles asked his mom if he could create his own sign proclaiming his view of God’s outlook, which read: “God Hates No One.”

Akrouche told The Augusta Chronicle: “He’s growing up to be a fine young man. I got my Mother’s Day gift a day early.”