Happy Birthday, Hongy!

Happy Birthday, you damned dirty ape!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

All the best, king.

Time for his 42nd mid-life crisis.

Happy Birthday!!!

Iago wrote:Time for his 42nd mid-life crisis.

Funny, you catch what he got himself for his Birthday?

Indeed. Hence the obscure reference for the few here like you who are on FB!

Damn you all!!!

FB can be your friend, I don't see the negativity everyone has to it around here, ...just don't buy the stock.

PhotoOtaku wrote:FB can be your friend, I don't see the negativity everyone has to it around here, ...just don't buy the stock.

Score a BAG and an {N-TYSH} for that one.

Happy
Birthday

I never understood what idiot buys stock in an established company that is already mainstream; It has nowhere to go but down.

and a big happy birthday to our favorite ape.

That whole IPO was arguably a scam which is hardly surprising. I will be interested to see if the SEC develops some teeth about it. Very likely not, of course.

ape HB...

I'm sure when FB hits rock bottom thats when the big companies will swoop in and make a killing....never fails.

Once the return on investment exceeds a company's cost of capital, anything is fair game, all else being equal.

Facebook is the one that made a killing at the expense of small investors, as they had the big firms quietly whisper to their clients that their earnings were lower than expected. It is not yet clear whether or not that is illegal (most of the immoral and unethical practices on Wall Street are not strictly illegal, as they have been well protected by lobbying Congress) but there are a raft of lawsuits already filed.

Were they publishing fraudulent financial statements, or otherwise hiding the data? Seems odd that investors would not clue in that things like earning per share or return on equity were not what they should be.

They basically only revealed the fact that there earning statements were way below the predictions to a few select brokers, who only revealed that to their biggest clients. So the reams of average Joe Blow investors had no clue that the initial stock price was overvalued.

I imagine some jobs will be lost over that, and fines levied.

Considering that the SEC largely looked the other way and whistled regarding all of the shenanigans that led to the 2008 crash, I rather doubt that they will do much here. By the way, I am currently reading the revised edition of Matt Taibbi's Griftopia, which is about the corruption in Wall Street and Congress as it related to the disaster. It is quite good; he manages to strike a good balance between serious, hard-core reporting and a polemical attack on those responsible. I like the fact that he is unafraid to express his opinion while still sticking to reporting the facts. (His chapter devoted to Alan Greenspan is bluntly titled, "The Biggest Asshole in the Universe.")

Are US firms governed by the International Accounting Standards Board for releasing financial results? If so, wouldn't the commission have to act on such a shady practice? Of course, the commission can look the other way for a number of half-assed reasons, but you think they'd want to uphold some level of standard given current economic conditions. Lowering consumer confidence in the system is not a good way to encourage economic growth. If people aren't investing, it's a domino effect from there.

The current economic conditions are the result of looking the other way. Nothing has changed.

http://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Bankers-Politicians-Audacious-American/dp/0385529961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338687613&sr=8-1

I'll check out that book next week when I have some free time.

I have read quite a bit about the financial crisis, but Taibbi has opened my eyes to some things about which I was unaware. There seems to be no bottom to the depths of corruption; just when you think that you have uncovered most of it, a bit of digging reveals a whole new vein.

OMG! thank you very much folks!
sorry for not checking back in a while...

work and life has been keeping me busy...

yep, i sold the crv and bough myself a red hot fj cruiser trail teams... heavy machine... but fun to drive!

again, thanks folks!