Morbid Humor from Wall Street
This one is everywhere now:
(Bloomberg) The Somali Pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.
The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. "You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything," said Ali.
The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.
Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said "we need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster." Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better."
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Well, what do the Somali Pirates really do with all their capital? This may be a spoof that comes true!
(Bloomberg) The Somali Pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.
The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. "You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything," said Ali.
The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.
Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said "we need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster." Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better."
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Well, what do the Somali Pirates really do with all their capital? This may be a spoof that comes true!
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What about the Cosa Nostra? Or the Japanese gangsters? You have some interesting ideas here!
November 21, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
;) - of course!
November 21, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
This just out TheraP!
(Reuters)Somali Pirates invaded and occupied San Francisco today. In a bold move, the pirates sailed a small fleet of dhows, motorboats, and hijacked yachts to Fisherman's Wharf and stormed ashore. After ineffectual resistance, the leftist peacenik government of the famed "City by the Bay", signed a surrender document and fled to the East Bay. Sazzan Haridi, pirate spokesman at a press conference this afternoon declared that the city had been declared a free state and part of the rapidly growing Pirate Commonwealth Union. A rapid military response was launched by the State of California: a lone motorcycle Highway Patrolman who wrote tickets on all the illegally wharfed Somali warships. "Heck of a job, Arnie" an embarrassed but relieved President Bush declared.
Spokesperson Dana Perino denied any further plans vis-a-vis the Somali pirates were being contemplated by the lame-duck administration. "We'll leave that to the incoming administration," she tartly said.
November 21, 2008 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
More likely the Somali Pirates would avoid the City on the Bay with its loose morality and surfeit of gaity for the maverick state of the great north.
Alaska has a bounty of readily available oil tankers to hijack and a seething population of armed religious radicals who have guns and the yearning for liberation from an oppressive distant regime in DC.
Alaska.
The gun loving land of the Last Frontier, ripe to become home for North American piracy,
November 22, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It was all part of a conspiracy it would seem!:
this just out
(Reuters)Today anonymous sources in the NSA leaked to the Washington Post the texts of intercepts of messages apparently between high ranking Republican operatives and the Somali Pirates. Part of the released transcripts:
[from Washington DC server] You defaulted. The agreement was for you to occupy Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle BEFORE the election in return for the tanker. This does us no good at all.
[from Mogadishu server] Yes. But what do you want us to do now? This place is freaky!
[Washington] Yes. Allow us to "chase" you off and we will allow you to keep the tanker.
[Mogadishu] No can do! We have our reputation to uphold. Tanker is ours! City is ours! Finders Keepers!
[Washington] OK. Lets let bygones be bygones. We hope to continue to do business with you.
[Mogadishu} Ok. Say hello to Mrs -REDACTED- for us.
end transcript
November 22, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder when we'll hear that the Pirates, all being men, endorse Gay Marriage!
Otherwise, since you seem to be in on the latest bulletins, what is their position on gay marriage? As that may affect how some Californians greet their presence!
Piracy, the new gay movement?
November 22, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Piracy, the new gay movement?"
Stranger things have happened. This blog for example. :)
November 22, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
one can only hope they have the good sense to arrive in a dhow rather than in one of their high speed chase boats when they apply for that TARP money.
November 21, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
So right! Unlike some recent visitors.
Rumor they are bringing large ethnic Somali woven bags to take the TARP money in.
Hence, "TARPetbaggers!"
They plan to buy several struggling US corporations and rename them.
Dhow Chemical will be the first rollout!
November 21, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, I'm with Miguelito of the H2O - you've struck GOLD with your TARPetbagger coinage!!
That should be posted across the front of TPM and the World. And I just googled it and haven't seen it anywhere.
Slam that in the title of a post or something..... 10 points.
November 22, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely get it in a post title Lux. That could be all over the net/news in days. Then we have to adapt the 1964 film, 'The Carpetbaggers'. Judging from this synopsis of the Edward Dmytryk film it shouldn't require much plot tinkering:
"The film's title is a metaphor for self-promoting tycoons who perform quick financial takeovers, impose dictatorial controls for short-term profits, then move on to greener pastures."
November 22, 2008 2:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I no longer care for fame!! [he lied, artfully] I relinquish all rights implied and etc, to my pet GOP definitions (moral absolutists/nihilists, etc.) and my "TARPetbaggers" to any party who wishes to use them!
Lux "open source/open commons all the time"
November 22, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Flyonthewall or Genghis could probably make a good post on it. I would commend to them the recipients list which I have gone over (without my green eyeshades) and some of the recipients like USB (25b bailout) had balance sheets that were pretty good, at least enough to enrich their shareholders):
http://www.streetinsider.com/Dividends/U.S.+Bancorp+(USB)+Declares+Qtr.+Dividend+of+$0.425Share/3993925.html
and one wonders what their needs were for the taxpayer's monies.
November 22, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Be careful what you wish for, quinn. "Tarpetbagger" is indeed a very bright word invention, because the Reconstruction analogy and the fraud involved with it is quite apt. But I can easily see Norquist type conservatives adoring the term, ala "big government spending liberals," and they too will love the analogy precisely because it does harken back to Reconstruction and the growth of control of the Federal government over the states. They've already started to try to label Obama as big spending liberal, before the election was over, and I see evidence it resounds with many. If you rewatch the carpetbagger scenes in "Gone with the Wind," you will see that racial anonmosities are quite easily included in the theme.
November 22, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
But Quinn thought of it first! What we must do is fight to keep control of "TARPitbagger." We will fight on the beaches. We will fight in the streets. We will fight in the hills. We will never surrender.
November 22, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
'TARPetbaggers'...excellent! Expand to cover all TARP applicants: rather than travelling south with their shoddy bags to profit from reconstruction, as the c-baggers did, these guys travel to DC in their corporate jets to profit from the Emergency Economic Stabilization act. Striking parallels as well as differences.
On other news fronts Reuters reports the Somali pirates in an attempt to diversify and expand in to the growing entertainment sector of the world economy have optioned the script to "Pirates of the Gulf of Aden", a comical spoof of the Disney franchise 'Pirates of the Caribbean", in which the swashbuckling Somali hero, (cast suggestion- Don Cheadle), wins the hearts of his crew by feeding them.
November 21, 2008 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ugh.
Rec'd
=D
November 22, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
TARPetbaggers...that is hilarious!
November 22, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you liked that than how about the following newspaper headings:
"Paulson rolls up the TARPet"
"The Magic TARPet Ride is Over"
"Missing the TARPeze: Farmers Bank is Left Out on the Largess"
"Washington, the New 'TARPet City'!"
"TARPedoing Insolvency, Paulson's New Plan"
"TARPet Tax: Getting Some Returns on Our Stakes"
November 22, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
TARPe Diem?
November 22, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Outstanding!
November 22, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I made those up, but a diligent Google search would probably turn up their like.
November 22, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just an FYI: currently, the Google returns no hits tarpetbagger.
November 22, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
They beg on the air, with the greatest of ease. That daring GM on their begging TARPeze?
November 22, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good one!
November 22, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
:) It was inspired by Lux's "missing the tarpeze" LOL
November 22, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I bet much literature from antiquity got written this way!
November 22, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Music from antiquity too! Have you seen this?
Pachebel's Rant
This is so stinking hilarious my sides hurt.
November 22, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beautiful! I had the pleasure of seeing Rob Parvonian perform that last spring as part of the opening act for George Carlin, (RIP).
November 22, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you mageduley! And isn't it wonderful that you can presume that TPM folk have such a wide background in so many areas?
I loved it!
November 22, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
TARPet: your bail-out box store; "Expect more, pay less. Right here, Right now."
"TARTetbaggers: your helpful bail-out cash/iers"
November 22, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exellent! Is it pronounced "tarpey" - to give that elitest (we'll give you a bonus too) feel? Or like "carpet?" A more pedestrian word. Which suggests a store where you push a cart by yourself.
November 22, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"sTARP it, you're killing me!"
My wife and I are discussing declaring ourselves a bank so we can qualify for some of the goulash!
Lux Manor does need a new paint job!
November 22, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
We should run with this. Use TARPetbagger in your posts to other sites. Use it in conversation. Lets see how long it takes to be everywhere in the blogosphere.
November 22, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink