>"Personally, I think this was a fraudulent deal by GS/Morgan Stanley -- Given all the criminality in banking thats been painfully obvious for years"

Please point me to a link that shows all of the banks and employees that have been charged with crimes.

>"I think this was a deliberate over valuation to allow them to dump shares immediately make a ton and let the stock drop."

A stock trade is a two way transaction. A holder of shares doesn't get to just "dump" stocks; someone has to be on the other end of the deal. For every seller there is a buyer. Why would they want the stock to drop, rather than have it go through the roof, allowing them to cash in at a higher price? That makes no sense.

>"Knowing that even though they did this, Facebook was not going to go under or have their actual business affected."

Have you stopped to consider that Facebook's business model is the real problem here? Probably not. It's far easier to go along with the anti-bank populist sentiment.

>"Does anyone know the sentiment of FB employees over all this, especially employees who have a sizable amount of stock?"

If they are to be angered at anyone, it should be at the Facebook insiders who dumped their stock.

"Personally, I think this was a fraudulent deal by GS/Morgan Stanley -- Given all the criminality in banking thats been painfully obvious for years"

Please point me to a link that shows all of the banks and employees that have been charged with crimes.

I hope you don't actually think that the lack of being charged with crimes means no crimes were committed. This is an awful line of logic.

>"I hope you don't actually think that the lack of being charged with crimes means no crimes were committed."

For the most part, yes, I do. I believe the justice system works.

You don't think there are politicians out there just itching to perp-walk some of these bankers? That there aren't some hot-shot DAs dying to make a name for themselves? It happened with Enron, Worldcom, Tyco. The public is frothing at the mouth to put some of these guys on trial.

So why haven't they? Because, like it or not, there hasn't been as much legal malfeasance as some would like to believe. Sure, if you look hard enough you'll find rogue employees doing bad things. That's a fact, and I won't deny it. You'll find the same in any large institution, be it government or Google. But this idea that the banks are directed from the top down to defraud people on a mass scale is complete and utter nonsense. Sorry.

We, as the public, like to create a narrative for why these massive deleveragings happen every so often. The reality is these cycles occur naturally when credit overextends. Suddenly we start blaming the bankers for people taking out loans they can't afford to pay back.

The banks and bankers have been taking an absolute beating for years now. The US essentially legalized the concept of buying a house and heads-I-win-tails-the-bank-loses. They've been forced to shoulder massive loan write-offs, simply because people refuse to pay back money they agreed to via contract. Every media outlet on the planet demonizes them. Stop and ask yourself: when has the mass media been right about anything?

Oh well. It can only go on for so long. Banks act as the bellwether for the economy; until they're making money again and lending resumes the economy will stay in the doldrums. You don't promote wealth creation and economic growth by stiffing creditors and putting the owners of capital in jail.

>Please point me to a link that shows all of the banks and employees that have been charged with crimes.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/

Don't be a pedant. Have you not been paying attention to everything that has been going on the last several years?

What about LIBOR?

My comment is not "anti-bank populist sentiment" - it is solidly founded in fact.

You appear to be in denial about whats really been going on in finance.

>"You appear to be in denial about whats really been going on in finance."

Nope, I have a pretty solid understanding of what's "really going on" in finance. In fact, part of my job involves me entering contracts based on LIBOR. How has the LIBOR "scandal" affected you?

You talk about not knowing what's going on, but then point to a documentary (albeit a good one) as evidence for your conspiracy theory about Facebook: it's not just a mediocre business that's incredibly overpriced for the value it offers. Rather, it's a large scale conspiracy by the evil bankers to screw over Saint Zuckerberg and make a couple million dollars extra!

Come on. Occam's Razor. This stuff isn't as complicated as you think.

Saint Zuckerberg? I hate facebook. I dont even have an account, I never have.

But with that said, I think that you're naive when it comes to the motivations and actions of entities like the Fed and Goldman Sachs.

Do I think they are evil? Without question.

If you think they are not, I question your wisdom.

>"But with that said, I think that you're naive when it comes to the motivations and actions of entities like the Fed and Goldman Sachs."

I question your wisdom when you refer to the motivations of huge enterprises like GS and the Fed, with thousands of employees, like they have a singular view.

As far as my naivete, well, I have friends that work for the Bank of Canada (a central bank...scary!) as well as on Bay and Wall Street inside big investment banks (though not GS, unfortunately) They're just regular guys punching the clock. Not evil.

But, judging by your understanding of how the stock market and IPO system works, it's pretty clear you have very little sense of finance, let alone how banking or the Federal Reserve system works. The fact that you cited Inside Job as your source reveals where you get your information from. Don't worry, you're not alone. There's a whole sub-culture out there that refuses to accept the fact that there is no banking conspiracy, that the Fed's motivations are clear and their actions are documented. 90% of the goings on in the financial world can be explained simply and logically. Big banks are out to make money, and how they do so is pretty straight forward. The Fed guys are academics, not evil geniuses. Have you ever listened to Bernanke's talks? The guy is as meek and nerdy as they come. Is that a clever ruse?

I hang around enough forums to know that it's very unlikely that you're willing to have your mind changed. If I'm wrong, I'm open to debating whatever (in another forum of course) If not, let's just agree to disagree.

It is clear you are a troll, a tool and an apologist.

Before MS/GS were appointed, the tech press was already talking about a $100bn valuation - Do they know what they are talking about? no. Are they to blame? no.

The final go ahead to the pricing of a company going public is down to the shareholders/board/CFO; not the banks. Banks are great escape goats, but not the reason why FB had a ridiculous valuation.

I'd suppose that if the stock is worth $20, and becomes $20 after a few months, the employees don't really care. It's the independent investors who were shafted for the most part.