Who needs revenue? The world's largest social network may yet challenge the record for the world's largest IPO, as Zuck & Co. increased the price range for Facebook shares, then increased the shares offered by 25 percent, valuing the offering at as much as $16 billion. Those numbers place Facebook in the neighborhood of GM—$15.8 billion, expanded to $18.1 when underwriters exercised an option to sell more shares given high demand—and Visa, which raised $17.9 billion, later raised to $19.7 billion.

It hardly seems to matter that some ads aren't translating into product sales.

Goes around, comes around (JPM): Hedge funds weren't the only ones to jump at the chance to snap up credit default swaps on the cheap from JPMorgan's chief investment office: Turns out JPMorgan's own Strategic Investment Opportunities Fund, which runs $13 billion in client money, accumulated $380 million in credit insurance identical to the type the London Whale was selling. Which one wag suggests means the metaphorical walls meant to keep information segregated between different parts of the bank appear to have been working.

Goes around, comes around (AIG): Remember when the Federal Reserve bailed out AIG to the tune of $182 billion, assuming devalued securities from the insurer in the process? Now AIG is buying some of those assets back, including $600 million in commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS.

Rush for the Grexit: This is sort of scary: Greek savers withdrew at least 700 million euros—$894 million—on Monday, as speculation rises the country may exit the eurozone. Reuters reports that withdrawals continued at the same rate on Tuesday, adding that for the moment, there aren't lines outside the banks. But when you have to mention it as a possibility...

Understocked? E-mails included in judicial filings by Overstock.com appear to show that Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch traders intentionally failed to find and deliver borrowed shares for short-selling clients. Overstock lawyers said that the banks' behavior caused widespread short-selling of Overstock's stock.

Battle of the Sexes: In the wake of Ina Drew's exit from JPMorgan, Time dusts off this old question: Do women make better traders than men?

Swiss miss: Credit Suisse told New York State regulators that it would eliminate 126 bankers in its Manhattan offices.

Pepsi Next? Activist investor Ralph Whitworth's Relational Investors took a $609 million stake in Pepsi last quarter, according to filings.

Preaching to the choir: President Barack Obama told rich private equity guys he believes in free enterprise.

"What they were really saying was “people were choosing Carte Bleu Visa today and throw the future down the drain."

“Maybe it should be, ‘Long live nightmares.'"

"It’s almost like, the present takes Visa, and it’s going to take you into a lousy future."

Also to come in for it? Mitt Romney (support for low taxes), Barack Obama (low participation is compressing the unemployment rate), Europeans who dare dream of an alternative to austerity ("there are no more resources to magically stimulate job growth, there’s just more debt"), the Fed (“a place of confusion these days”)...and you get the point. If this sounds like your cup of tea, you might want to pencil July 10 into your calendar, as Gundlach will be discussing his multi-asset growth fund.

The mystifying powers of a seemingly endless Visa credit limit and the bargain prices of Walmart! (Image Katu.com)

Fordham University published their Fourth Quarter 2011 V-Positive Report, which measures the Consumer Value Index. The methodology is based off of a few psychological theories that reflect the "understanding of the motivation to consume." In short: a thousand people are surveyed at the end of the year and answer several attributes for each of the seven domains.

The research is then used to measure and showcase the extent of which massive corporations impact our lives. The questions consider happiness, self esteem and physiological benefits to truly list the most beneficial and admired companies.

In terms of Societal V-Positive, which measures brand value across the United States, the most highly regarded companies were as follows:

• 1. Walmart
• 2. Facebook
• 3. Google
• 4. Visa
• 5. Yahoo!
• 6. McDonald's
• 7. Amazon
• 8. Coca-Cola
• 9. Microsoft
• 10. Target

It's relatively clear that Americans like a bargain with Target, Amazon, and Walmart taking three of the spots. They also like to consume calories, in the case of McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Yahoo! and Microsoft might be the most questionable of them all, but Google says enough by being ahead of them. Now, Visa is kind of unexpected, but who doesn't love spending money they don't have at all of these other fine establishments?

We have all of these in New York except for Walmart. Then again, do we really need another night club?

mewing@observer.com

Jones and Yelchin.

Like Crazy is an endearing film about intelligent young people (what a relief) and the resilience it takes for their love to overcome geography. Anna (enchanting Felicity Jones) is a British college student with the most beguiling eyes since Jean Simmons’s, earning credits for a series of writing courses in California. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) studies furniture design and lives with his widowed mom. They’re both only children who find in each other the humor, caring, togetherness and sense of belonging they never had before. Refreshingly languid in giving the two students time to think and grow and get to know each other, the film moves into their hearts and so will you.

When the semester ends, she must reluctantly return to England to renew her visa so she can qualify for the fall term. He gives her a gold bracelet with the word “Patience” engraved on it. Overwhelmed with emotion, she stays, violating her visa, so when the time comes to return to Los Angeles, her entry visa and passport are denied by U.S. immigration and she is forcibly sent back to London without leaving the airport. Separated by miles as well as red tape, their love is reduced to emails and cell phones. He moves on with his furniture, she gets a job with a British magazine, but the luster does not tarnish. No matter how hard they try to be mature and impassive, telling themselves that love is only love, they have bonded on the purest level. Life is never really the same for either of them. Jacob saves enough money to visit her, but making love in her rented flat, seeing the sights together, and then saying bittersweet goodbyes makes things only worse. Back home, he tries a radical approach, tossing her mail and erasing her text messages. He even falls for another girl (Jennifer Lawrence, from Winter’s Bone) while in London; Anna starts a relationship with a handsome neighbor. Nothing works. They can’t prune away their emotional attachment like a surgical procedure. She’s lonely and expressive. He’s a sensitive man in the body of a boy. Both of them are inexperienced but seasoned beyond their years. Marriage is proposed, but since she abused her travel permit, neither British immigration nor the U.S. Embassy will process their application for a marriage visa to enter the U.S. He stays in England, jeopardizing his career. The visa finally comes through and they are together again, but the resolutions to the problems raised by the changes in their lives are yet to come. Will the emotional wedge between them widen? Can they ever feel the same after living a little, making sacrifices to their own ideals, and breaking a few hearts along the way (including their own)? Director-writer Drake Doremus is a talent to watch—restrained, economical, breezy—with an uncanny ability to make familiar themes seem originally observed. He has a wonderful way with actors, his settings looked lived in, the words in his screenplay (co-written with Ben York Jones) sound real and true. He’s a master of nuance. I’m told he kept the ending under wraps, even from the actors, until the first edit. The looks on their faces mirror myriad feelings, all of them exciting to observe. Unlike most alleged Hollywood rom-coms, Like Crazy is delicate, uplifting and definitely worth investigating.

rreed@observer.com

LIKE CRAZY

Running Time 90 minutes

Written by Drake Doremus

Directed by Drake Doremus

Starring Felicity Jones, Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence

3/4

Operation Payback has taken down the websites of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Joe Lieberman. 

These are Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attacks. These cripple sites by overloading them with traffic, but don't do any permanent damage or attempt to access customers' financial information.

Also down for the count are the website of Julian Assange's Swedish prosecutor and the Swedish Bank, PostFinance.

Even from prison, Assange continue to be a major headache for the world's rich and powerful.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out this morning on WNYC, multiple governments are taking extra-legal measures to imprison Assange and to force Wikileaks off the net. That makes these hackers feel justified going outside the law in Wikileaks' defense. Not that 4Chan ever really needed an excuse to cause some trouble. 

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

At the same time Mastercard and Visa declared they are suspending payments to Wikileaks, effectively blocking their customers from donating to the organization. Online giant Paypal has also cut off funding for Wikileaks.

As Jeff Jarvis points out over at HuffPo, "I can use Visa and Mastercard to pay for porn and support anti-abortion fanatics, Prop 8 homophobic bigots, and the Ku Klux Klan. But I can't use them or PayPal to support Wikileaks, transparency, the First Amendment, and true government reform."

There is a difference, of course, between being an ideological outsider, or even a proponent of hate speech, and the #1 enemy of the state.

Twitter and Facebook remain havens for Wikileaks. No word yet on whether the organization can run its operations soley on Facebook credits.

UPDATE: Pirates to the rescue. Donations can still be made to Wikileaks through Flattr, the social micropayments site created by Peter Sunde, the man behind the notorious torrent site, The Pirate Bay. Assange's love-hate relationship with Sweden continues to grow.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper