BAZOUKI BONDS FOR CHINA

BANZAI7--The Greek government is trying to sell at least EUR25 billion ($16.7 billion) worth of bazouki bonds to Chinese banks as part of its efforts to refinance the country's massive public debt, a person familiar with the situation said Friday. The Bond offering would be secured by a first mortgage on the Parthenon and a perpetual right to use all of the Greek Islands during the peak Holiday season.

"Greece has been in touch with Chinese banks," the person, with direct knowledge of the situation, told Dow Jones Newswires. "The Chinese banks have great expertise financing gargantuan Olympic projects and are interested in shipping the Parthenon for use as a Macau sauna facade."

TIGER: STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE

FORE!!!

Straight down the middle
He drove it straight down the middle
Then he started to swerve just a wee wee bit
That's when his wife lost sight of him
That Cadillac SUV has never been found to this day
But it went straight down the middle just like they say

Whack down the driveway
She smacked it like in the fairway
Then she started to slice just a smidge off line
It was aimed at his head for two but he bounced just in time
His caddie says long as you're still awake you're okay
Yes she smacked him straight down the middle quite a ways

The moon was never brighter
The greens were never darker
And he was never keener to play
He aimed it straight down the middle
It went zing down the middle
Oh the life of a golfer is not all gloom
There's always the lies to tell in the locker room
And the details can get dicey when you see Rachel Uchitel wrapped in a towel
You can see why it went straight down the middle today

Oh the life of a golfer is not all gloom
Though they charge a hefty fine for hitting hydrants under the Florida moon
But he told his story when wrapped in a towel
That he drove that SUV straight down the middle
Where it wound up is a riddle
But it went straight down the middle thats what they say

DUBAIMANIA

REUTERS--Dubai's debt woes could further unhinge an already fragile U.S. commercial real estate, as it illustrates the importance of that tiny country to global investors in an increasingly interconnected world.

A state-owned investment conglomerate Dubai World, with $59 billion of liabilities, set off a global stock market selloff this week after it said it wants to restructure its debt, including at its property subsidiary Nakheel.

"This downturn has had more of a global impact," said Tony Ciochetti, chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Real Estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

WB7--The fact that MIT has a center for real estate tells it all in a nutshell.

DOTCOM FOOTNOTE

ABC NEWS--ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs and World Online misled investors during the 2000 initial public offering (IPO) of the Dutch Internet provider, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The listing of World Online in March 2000 was the biggest Dutch Internet IPO at the time, valuing the company at 12 billion euros ($18 billion). The stock plunged after it became known that World Online's chief executive had sold shares far below the IPO price before the stock was floated.

ABN AMRO and Goldman Sachs were jointly global coordinator, lead manager and bookrunner of the IPO.

"The unlawful behavior of World Online, ABN AMRO , and Goldman Sachs has been confirmed by this ruling of the Supreme Court," the court said in a statement.

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER CONSERVATIVE DOUCHE BAG

BANZAI7 NEWS--

"Since last September, the government's case for bailing out AIG has rested on the notion that the company was too big to fail. If AIG hadn't been rescued, the argument goes, its credit default swap (CDS) obligations would have caused huge losses to its counterparties—and thus provoked a financial collapse.

Last week's news that this was not in fact the motive for AIG's rescue has implications that go well beyond the Obama administration's efforts to regulate CDSs and other derivatives. It's one more example that the administration may be using the financial crisis as a pretext to extend Washington's control of the financial sector."

This is what a wing nut named Peter J. Wallison, a so called Financial Industry De-Regulation "Scholar" at the American Enterprise Hacktank has to say in today's WSJ.

Mr. Wallison is absolutely right, Bush, Paulsen, Bernanke and Geithner were all agents operating under secret orders from candidate Obama. They were all acting in a vast Obamian economic conspiracy, launched in the twilight of the dimly lit Bush Presidency, for the hostile US government takeover of Wall Street...or was it the friendly Wall Street takeover of the US government?

What does "Scholar" Wallison think?

Who besides Republican minority leader Bonehead cares.

Whatever happens, one thing we should not allow is Conservative douche bags to claim
the subprime meltdown and the AIG shadow Wall Street/Goldman bailout were engineered by Obama. This particular conservative douche bag happens to be House Minority Leader John Bonehead's appointee to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. That's the emergency Bi-Partisan Commission appointed to issue its report on the crisis the end of next year.

Congratulations "Scholar" Peter Wallison:

MINARET MORATORIUM

BANZAI7 NEWS--Unofficial Swiss election returns show voters approving a right-wing initiative banning construction of new minarets attached to mosques.

In a related development, Saudi Arabia is reported to be planning a vote banning Swiss Bank accounts.

WHO'S BEEN SLEEPIN IN MY FIRST BED?

BANZAI7 NEWS--New details have emerged in the Thanksgiving White House gate crasher affair. The Secret Service believes that Michael and Tark Salamis may have infiltrated the first bedroom.

Unidentified White House sources confirm that Michelle Obamas's tooth brush reportedly tasted of Cherry flavored double bubble on the evening of the Dinner. The President is also rumored to have discovered a pair of rogue boxer shorts under his pillow and a used condom wrapper under his night table.

GATE CRASHING WEEKEND

BSNAZAI7--As White House officials fended off new questions about how Tark and Michael Salami, a fame-seeking couple, gate crashed their way into the president’s glittering state dinner last week in honor of somebody from the Asian Subcontinent, the aspiring reality-TV losers themselves began trying to sell their story for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods was briefly hospitalized after crashing his own gate and is also fending off questions.

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

LONDON (Dow Jones)--European stocks fell sharply and bond spreads widened Thursday after Dubai World's request for a standstill on its debts. The giant holding company is owned by the government of Dubai and grew fast while accumulating liabilities of about $60 billion during the boom.

The following is a summary of coverage of Thursday's events and reaction:

DUBAI BANKS: Dubai banks Emirates Bank International PJSC (EBI.AI), National Bank of Dubai (NBL.EDH) and Mashreqbank PSC (MASQ.DFM) and the Dubai Islamic BankPJSC (DIB.DFM) have all been put on credit watch by Standard & Poor's rating agency after the city state's largest corporate entity, Dubai World, asked creditors for a six-month standstill on debt repayments.

EUROPE BANKS: European banks face potential losses on an estimated $40 billion in exposure to Dubai after Dubai World asked creditors for a six month standstill on debt repayments, raising fears that recent signs of improvements in banks' bad debt levels could reverse and Dubai's problems could weigh on the global recovery.

ASIA: The shock from Dubai World's restructuring and call for a standstill on its group debts spilled over into Asia Thursday, with global Islamic bonds issued out of the region weakening sharply.

People in the market linked the selloff, particularly in the sukuk of the Indonesian government and Malaysia's national oil company Petronas, to the debt-laden city-state's surprise announcement Wednesday, but many were convinced it was a knee-jerk reaction.

DUBAI DEBT: The cost of insuring sovereign debt issued by Dubai increased again early Thursday, according to data provider CMA.

It now costs $570,000 to insure $10 million of Dubai sovereign debt against default for five-years, up from $440,000 at Wednesday's New York close.

The cost of insuring emerging-market sovereign debt also rose markedly, as the fallout of Dubai World's restructuring announcements and Vietnam's decision to revalue the dong weighed on risk appetite.

MARKETS: The dollar is still rising after midday in Europe, driven both by fear of a debt default by Dubai World as well as talk of intervention by the Bank of Japan and suspected intervention by the Swiss National Bank. European stocks fell sharply.

SAUDI: Gulf International Bank, or GIB, said it was postponing its planned dollar-denominated bond issue after news that the government of Dubai was restructuring Dubai World. In a statement, merchant bank GIB, which is 97.2%-owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, said the decision was "made in the best interests of investors participating in the deal" and that it will "continue to monitor markets in the future to access funding opportunities."

DP WORLD: Dubai started to untangle the $60 billion financial mess of its once prized Dubai World conglomerate by ring-fencing its profitable ports unit. DP World (DPW.DIF) will be excluded from the debt standstill and restructuring of Dubai World and its subsidiaries, the ports operator said in a statement posted on the Nasdaq Dubai Web site. DP World, which operates the Middle East's largest container port, is considered the best assets within the Dubai World conglomerate. Most of the company's problems appear to stem from its troubled real estate unit Nakheel, which borrowed heavily to build vast property projects including Palm shaped residential islands in the Gulf.

BEHOLD--THE BLACK CAMEL

REUTERS--Just when investors were settling down to lock in a few of the year’s profits and put their feet up for the end of the year holidays, a black camel has come waddling out of the desert to put everything on edge.

The unwelcome cygnus atratus came in the form of Gulf emirate Dubai telling creditors of Dubai World and property group Nakheel that debt repayments would be delayed. Fears of contagion spread widely, hitting world stocks, lifting the dollar out of its basement and driving demand for European debt so much that a roughly 6-month trading range for futures was breached.

TIMES OF LONDON: The value of British banking shares plunged by £13.7 billion today amid growing fears the UK financial sector could be heavily exposed to Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate which yesterday asked for a standstill on its $60 billion (£36 billion) debt pile.

Investors had been hoping the British financial sector had worked through much its toxic debt, which included exposure to America's sub-prime mortgage market.

However, Credit Suisse estimates European banks are exposed to about half of Dubai's $80 billion borrowings, naming Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as the UK lenders most at risk from the Emirates worsening debt problems.

The emergence of Dubai's financial problems now raises fears UK banks could face more writedowns on bad debts, and chimes with warnings earlier this week from Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing general of the International Monetary Fund, who said that global banks had only worked through half their toxic assets since the banking crisis broke two years ago.

WB7: Here's something to think about. These developments have conveniently occurred the day before a long weekend trading holiday in the US. All those hedge fund managers and traders with big EM exposure are going to be asking the same thing today: "Honey, where's the Malox?" While they pretend to be absorbed in today's game, they will also be worrying about how the Black Camel that roiled the European markets is a inconvenient metaphor for the Black Turkey haunting commercial real estate assets in the US.

"One London trader said: "Dubai is weighing heavily on the market, it has its fingers in so many pies that it could have a contagion effect and there are concerns another country could have problems on the back of this."

"He added that today's activity was very similar to when Lehman Brothers collapsed, warning that Dubai's problems could be the catalyst for the market to fall further."

OOOOUCH!!

Enjoy today's games.