It’s seriously grating to see an Eton and Oxford-educated ambassador’s son who works for the Council on Foreign Relations rant about Obama’s “populist” attack on private equity. That’s Sebastian Mallaby, who takes to the Financial Times to defend Mitt Romney and Bain Capital’s honor, as well as the honor of the private-equity industry at large. Here’s the top: Having hit the rich with the promise of a Buffett tax, the Obama campaign is rolling out its next populist gimmick: an attack on private equity. A series of lurid campaign commercials goes after Mitt Romney for his record at Bain Capital, a company that, in the advert’s telling, behaves like a “vampire”. “They came in and sucked the life out of us,” a steel worker says ... Continue reading →

Enlarge image Morgan Stanley’s Gorman Said to Join Facebook Call on IPO Price Facebook shares tumbled 16 percent through yesterday. Facebook shares tumbled 16 percent through yesterday. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Prongay, an attorney at Glancy Binkow & Goldberg, talks about the lawsuit the firm has filed with a California court over Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering. He speaks with Cory Johnson on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." Bloomberg's Emily Chang also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg) Ryan Cefalu, who lives with his wife and two kids in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw in Facebook Inc. (FB)’s much-anticipated initial public offering a chance to buffer his retirement fund. His expectations fizzled along with the stock within the first minutes of trading. “It’s disheartening to know ... Continue reading →

I have a fondness for copy editing and copy editors. I learned more in my copy editing class than in any other course I took at Texas Christian University back in the 1970s (hat tip to my instructor, Jim Batts). I learned as much in my two years on the Des Moines Register’s copy desk, also in the ’70s, as I’ve learned any two years ever in my career. And I worked with an extraordinarily talented group there. I got to be a pretty good copy editor and self-editor (I’m the only editor of this blog, though I often read a post to Mimi and occasionally she will read a post before publication). But still, copy editors saved me from embarrassment many a time in ... Continue reading →

A User's Guide To Smoking Pot With Barack Obama Barry was quite the accomplished marijuana enthusiast back in high school and college. Excerpts from David Maraniss' Barack Obama: The Story dealing with the elaborate drug culture surrounding the president when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles. He inhaled. A lot. posted May 25, 2012 8:29am EDT Continue reading →

Facebook's IPO Flop Is Decade's Worst May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sheila Dharmarajan reports on facebook's IPO and how it is the biggest flop in a decade based on the first 5 days of trading. She speaks on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg) TV Channel Finder ZIP is required for U.S. locations Bloomberg Television in change Continue reading →

We’re starting to get a better picture of what happened with Facebook on Friday and in the run-up to its IPO, and it’s not pretty. The repercussions have already begun, with a class-action lawsuit already filed against Facebook and Wall Street for misleading investors about the company’s prospects. You can bet the recrimination from participants won’t be too far behind. It appears from what we know now that Facebook and its bankers selectively told big investors in the days before the IPO that the company’s outlook had dimmed but failed to tell mom and pop investors. That would be a serious problem if true. Reuters has been leading on this story, reporting Saturday that Facebook had lowered its guidance during the IPO roadshow, “a rare ... Continue reading →

Of course its repeal contributed, directly and indirectly, to the financial crisis Here’s the headline for Andrew Ross Sorkin’s column on Tuesday about Glass-Steagall and the financial crisis: Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis No kiddin’. Let’s see what else isn’t a “cure for crisis”: — Breaking Up Too Big to Fail Banks Is Not a Cure for Crisis — Stronger Capital Requirements Are Not a Cure for Crisis — Quintupling Regulatory Budgets Is Not a Cure for Crisis — Hauling Executives to Jail Is Not a Cure for Crisis There is no single “cure for crisis.” Period. And nobody anyone pays attention to is actually saying there is. Here’s the nut of Sorkin’s argument: A meme around Glass-Steagall has been ... Continue reading →

Making the rounds is The Facebook Fallacy, a killer essay by Michael Wolff in MIT Technology Review. The gist: At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, valuation of around $100 billion, and the bulk of its business in traditional display advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of the fallacy. The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency. The nature ... Continue reading →

Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, said Thursday it would scale back the printed edition to three days a week and impose staff cuts as a way to reduce costs as well as shift its emphasis to expanded online coverage. The decision will leave New Orleans as the most prominent American city without a newspaper that is printed every day. But it also reflects the declining lure of the paper as a printed product. In 2005, before Katrina struck, the paper had a daily circulation of 261,000; in March of this year, the circulation was 132,000. The developments were the latest instance of reorganization in a rapidly changing industry, which continues to struggle with declining advertising revenue and the changing preferences of readers for ... Continue reading →