Unforeseen Contingencies

What do Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies have in common? Facebook is selling shares to Goldman and DST. Simultaneously Goldman is developing a structured investment vehicle so as to circumvent SEC reporting requirements. Facebook will have possibly thousands of high-end investors, but with the SIV it will be considered just one investor -- Goldman Sachs.

I've been anti-Facebook for a long time. It's difficult to find another activity that is so vacuous and pervasive as Facebooking; television watching is the only thing I can think of. But television watching, mind-numbing as it is, at least does not require you to give up your privacy. But now users will be surrendering their privacy to secret unnamed investors. Do you really want to give all this info to... umm, Putin? The Chinese? The Saudis? Who knows who? There'll be no way to find out.

Couple Facebook with the most corrupt and conniving of financial entities (Goldman, of course), add the Russians and who knows who else, and you have quite an alarming operation, to say the least. Most "social networking" is simply empty distraction from the standpoint of the user, but increasingly the information we put out is being used for manipulating us under the guise of marketing. Social networking is really social engineering on a mass scale. We at Unforeseen Contingencies strongly urge everyone to break the habit and get rid of their Facebook and similar social networking accounts.

Yes, a match made in hell. This is not innocuous.