About Me 0057: Making Money Opportunities

I’m glad you responded to deBoer less politely than Drum did. I am royally pissed that such a poorly reasoned critique got responses from both of you. I think that I will argue that you are clearly Zooroastrians, since easily refuted criticism seems to be the ticket to fame around here.

However, I also think you slipped up in your reply. You say no one is to your left and your thought is based on the thought of JD Mill. This does not imply that no one is to the left of JS Mill, but it totally miss states where Mill’s writings would place him if he were reincarnated. Many of his views would be ultra ultra right today. For example, he supported a poll tax on the grounds that to be able to vote on spending without being taxed is to be given a license to pick other peoples’ pockets (I am quoting “On Liberty” from memory). Margaret Thatcher decieded to follow the very explicit detailed instructions of JS Mill. That was the time she went too far and lost the confidence of the Tory Parliamentary party and so the parliament and so became a baroness. Too far right for Margeret Thatcher to get away with and very explicitly advocated by JS Mill are consistent.

He also opposed the secret ballot. He said that, in the past, he supported it so people couldn’t be intimidated by their employers, but that people were getting too uppity so open voting was better. The excessive uppityness was in the 19th century. This again is very very explicitly stated in “On Liberty”.

Oh Nemisis. I decided to check my recollections and it is very explicitly state in “Reflections of Represenative Government” a book which I must have read but I don’t remember when. I quote one of the inspirations of your insuperable leftism

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/conrg10h.htm (search for ballot)

It may unquestionably be the fact, that if we attempt, by publicity, to make the voter responsible to the public for his vote, he will practically be made responsible for it to some powerful individual, whose interest is more opposed to the general interest of the community than that of the voter himself would be, if, by the shield of secrecy, he were released from responsibility altogether. When this is the condition, in a high degree, of a large proportion of the voters, the ballot may be the smaller evil.

[skip]

But in the more advanced states of modern Europe, and especially in this country, the power of coercing voters has declined and is declining; and bad voting is now less to be apprehended from the influences to which the voter is subject at the hands of others, than from the sinister interests and discreditable feelings which belong to himself, either individually or as a member of a class.

Finally he opposed one person one vote. He thought people with advanced degrees should have extra votes. He said this would make it clear that they were (we are) the “very elite” of the nation. He objected that ordinary people in the USA “(provided they are white)” do not acknoweldge that anyone is their better.

nemesis again. Again it is in Reflections on Representative Govenment and the attempted quote is not correct. This time search for “white skin”

“I do not look upon equal voting as among the things which are good in themselves, provided they can be guarded against inconveniences. I look upon it as only relatively good; less objectionable than inequality of privilege grounded on irrelevant or adventitious circumstances, but in principle wrong, because recognizing a wrong standard, and exercising a bad influence on the voter’s mind. It is not useful, but hurtful, that the constitution of the country should declare ignorance to be entitled to as much political power as knowledge. The national institutions should place all things that they are concerned with before the mind of the citizen in the light in which it is for his good that he should regard them; and as it is for his good that he should think that every one is entitled to some influence, but the better and wiser to more than others, it is important that this conviction should be professed by the state, and embodied in the national institutions. Such things constitute the spirit of the institutions of a country;

[skip]

The American institutions have imprinted strongly on the American mind that any one man (with a white skin) is as good as any other; and it is felt that this false creed is nearly connected with some of the more unfavorable points in American character. It is not small mischief that the constitution of any country should sanction this creed; for the belief in it, whether express or tacit, is almost as detrimental to moral and intellectual excellence any effect which most forms of government can produce. ”

Mill wrote a long time ago. His views were very progressive in his time, but many of them are absurdly reactionary now.

Your efforts to reassure your readers that you are a leftist just like Milton Friedman and JS Mill are not reassuring to this reader. I will just assume that you are not familiar with Friedmans massive opus and that, the passage of so many years has dulled your memory of what Mill actually wrote. I admit I read him when I was an undergraduate taking Rawls’s course on Justice Pass Fail (I passed) and, sigh, many many many more years have passed since I was an undergraduate than since you were an undergraduate. But I think my quotes from memory are substantially accurate.

update: I checked them and I had forgotten in which book I read them rounghly 3 decades ago (sorry). I now suspect that you never read “Reflections on Representative Government” and apologise for questioning you memory.

I know you used the weasel phrase “recognizably derived from ” but if your views actually were recognizably derived from Mills’s, then there would be a whole lot of people genuinely to your left.

By the way, you write no one is to your left. This is odd, since you have also listed people to your left on one of your blogs (not this blog). You definitely once wrote that, in a meaningful way, Billmon is to your left. This occured when you were discussing the fact that in a test your ideology web page you came out a centrist (some time ago). You argued that the test was invalid and they called you centrist because you are consequentialist. I can’t find the post.

Facebook finally put out a press release on PR Newswire officially setting the record straight on $1.5 billion in funding. The overseas clientele of Goldman Sachs bought $1 billion, and the bank plus Digital Sky Technologies together invested another $500 million.

The blogosphere will doubtlessly explode with posts about why and how the numbers seem to have changed from what was originally reported by The New York Times on January 2. I don’t think the size of the deal selling to Goldman’s clientele shrank from $1.5 billion to $1 billion because of U.S. investors got shut out of the deal, although that’s a clever idea.

I think the discrepancy more likely has to do with the nature of off-the-record scoops, like the one that started the media frenzy in the first place. Rarely do the early leaks of secrets ever turn out to be accurate. Don’t mistake this as dissing any of the previous coverage of $500 million in direct investment and $1.5 billion from Goldman clientele. Like the release says, Facebook chose to limit the overseas offering to $1 billion, after the bank offered the choice of a range from $375 million to $1.5 billion.

The release consists of one straightforward factual paragraph, a quote from Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman and then a set of four questions and answers about the deal — all of it appears below, except for the boilerplate at the tail end. The fact that this official statement came out today indicates that the deal has closed. Read on for the release:

Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion

Facebook Receives $1 Billion from Goldman Sachs Overseas Offering; Digital Sky Technologies and Goldman Sachs Also Recently Made $500 Million Direct Investment

Investment Values Facebook at $50 Billion

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook today announced it has raised U.S.$1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion.

The transaction consisted of two parts. Today, Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to its non-U.S. clients in a fund that invested $1 billion in Facebook Class A common stock. In December, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and funds managed by Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook Class A common stock at the same valuation.

“Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing,” said David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer. “With this investment completed, we now have greater financial flexibility to explore whatever opportunities lie ahead.”

The investment generated a significant number of questions from interested parties and Facebook has addressed the most common ones below.

Why did Facebook raise this money?

DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an investment, and Facebook decided it was an attractive opportunity to bolster its cash reserves and increase its financial flexibility with limited dilution to existing shareholders.

Why did Facebook choose to raise $1 billion in the overseas offering?

Under the transaction’s terms, Facebook had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from the Goldman Sachs overseas offering, at the discretion of Facebook. While the offering was oversubscribed, Facebook made a business decision to limit the offering to $1 billion.

What are Facebook’s plans for the proceeds of this transaction?

There are no immediate plans for these funds. Facebook will continue investing to build and expand its operations.

Does this investment mean that Facebook will have more than 500 shareholders?

Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

It’s great to see that the social network will indeed begin making financial disclosures to the public by the end of April; and the release doesn’t say anything about whether or when an initial public offering might happen.

Why do you think the total size of the transaction changed from the originally reported $1.5 billion coming from overseas clients of Goldman Sachs to the currently announced $1 billion?

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Making Money Opportunities

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