You Decide: Goldman’s Facebook Pitch or Nigerian Email ‘Opportunity’

Wall Street Journal ^ | 01/07/2011 | Shira Ovide

[SeekAndFind]

To be offered private stock in Facebook, wealthy clients of Goldman Sachs had to have a spare $2 million lying around. But even the hoi polloi may have a similar pitch sitting in their email inboxes right now.

As a first step to drum up investor interest in Facebook stock, Goldman Sachs shot missives to clients with the opaque subject line, “Private Investment,” according to an email reviewed by Deal Journal. We couldn’t help compare it to another solicitation for money, from an anonymous Nigerian who assures you of a giant payout if you help him get back to his home country.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Of course, unlike Nigerian email scams, the solicitation came from a Goldman money manager rather than a random stranger. And Goldman isn’t offering a scam but an investment opportunity so hot that the investment bank had to stop taking orders, as our colleagues reported this afternoon. But we couldn’t help note some similar language used by Goldman and purported Nigerian princes. Read and compare!

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CLICK ABOVE LINK TO COMPARE THE GOLDMAN SACHS OFFER AND THE NIGERIAN E-MAIL

[Vaduz]

Investment opportunity so hot that the investment bank had to stop taking orders.
Sounds like Pelosi has a job on the side.

[ozdragon]

I don't work for GS and I don't have a spare $2MM or even a spare $20 but I read the financial press and pay attention to the world around me. While this article is entertaining the reality is that there are over 500MM Facebook subscribers and the numbers are growing rapidly.

Facebook is actually a very powerful marketing tool which will allow advertisers to efficiently target high probability customer. That said it is easy to see that Facebook could generate several billion dollars in annual earning in just a few years which would make a $50B valuation look modest. $50B is just $100 per subscriber where cable TV franchises can sell for $1,500 per subscriber.

[LomanBill]

>>Facebook is actually a very powerful marketing tool

 

The work-product of a tool depends upon the moral and ideological framework of those that use it.

 

Imagine, for example, how Facebook might have been used back when....

"Same way as in a small town of Hua in South Vietnam; several thousands of Vietnamese were executed in one night when the city was captured by [the] Viet Cong for only two days; and American CIA could never figure out - how could [the communists] possibly know each Individual, where he lives, where to get him; and [in order that they] would be arrested in one night basically in four hours before dawn, put on a van, driven out of the city limits and shot.
 
The answer is very simple.  Long before communists occupy the city, there was extensive network of informers; local Vietnamese citizens who knew absolutely everything about people who are instrumental in public opinion - including Barbers and Taxi Drivers.  Everyone who was sympathetic to United States was executed.  Same thing was done under the guidance of the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, and same thing I was doing in New Delhi. To my horror, I discovered that in the files were people who were doomed to execution.  There were names of pro-Soviet Journalists, with whom I was personally friendly."

--KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2095202/posts