Briac

* Jeff Cox: How Wall Street will beat the new financial regulations * Lee Hower: Social games have been institutionalized (deal with it) * SEC charges the Wyly brothers with insider trading fraud that reaped $550 million * Morning Call: U.S. futures slip ahead of GDP data, London falls early, European shares keep slipping and the Nikkei loses 1.6%. * For Apple followers, it's a matter of faith * Tony Hayward is a narcissistic nutjob * Ratings agencies voice concerns about take-privates * Paul Graham says that traditional VC round structures are going way. In related news, Paul Graham seems to keep forgetting that not every startup is an IT startup. * Ben Smith: "Peter Orszag may have had the shortest tenure of any member of the Obama Cabinet, but in an administration dominated by a powerful White House staff, he left as deep a mark as almost anyone in it."

* What the %#$&? Goldman Sachs bans swearing in emails * James Ledbetter: Why doesn't job retraining work in America? * David Whelan: Three storylines to follow on the upcoming HCA IPO * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares climb and the Nikkei retreats. * Congress rethinks its ban on Internet gambling * More thoughts on deal syndication in micro-VC land: Roger Ehrenberg and Josh Kopelman * Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian company that keeps investing in U.S. Internet companies like Facebook, may go public next year. * Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) introduces legislation to repeal a part of Dodd-Frank that would exempt the SEC from most FOIA requests. * Ford plans to discontinue to Crown Victoria, meaning that NYC streets will never look the same. * Tim Congdon: Niall Ferguson is wrong to put the banker Siegmund Warburg on a moral pedestal.

* John Carney: We are all Milberg Weiss now * Allan Sloan: KKR is living the tax dream you can't * Pamela Samuelson: Why software startups decide to patent... or not * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares slip and the Nikkei climbs 2.7%. * Six questions for Bruce Bartlett * Marc Faber: Sit still, this is gonna hurt * Doug Banks is tired of the East Coast vs. West Coast tech innovation debate * Forget those negative nabobs on the Old Spice ad campaign; company sales rose 107% last month * LinkedIn is now valued at $2 billion, based on recent share purchase by hedge fund Tiger Global Management... When's that IPO?

* The past decade's top-paid CEOs * David Beisel: Micro-VCs are all BFFs... forever? * Philip Mirowski: The mortifying (and ongoing) response of economists to the financial crisis * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares hit 5-week high, the Nikkei falls and Shanghai stocks snap win streak. * Henry McCance: Four things great VCs do and four ideas to guide them * CB Insights finds serious shrinkage in the size of seed-stage deals in Boston and New York. * Meeting marker: SEC chair Mary Shapiro will speak this morning on implementing new financial regs * McKinsey & Co.: U.S. multinationals represent less than 1% of all U.S. companies, yet they accounted for 23% of U.S. private sector GDP in 2007 * Peter Morris: “Calculating returns on private equity is not a trivial issue. The most widely used measure, the IRR, is misleading and often overstates realised returns. This creates room for uncertainty, at best, and, at worst, manipulation.”

* Walter Kirn: The art of the deal as entertainment * Jalak Jobanputra: Fashion is the new black online * Jill Priluck: How boutique I-banks could benefit from Wall Street reform * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares slip, the Nikkei edges higher and Shanghai keeps rising. * Michael Santoli: Why KKR stock is cheap * Jon Karlen: China will eat our lunch in cleantech, if we're not careful * GIC: World recession could come "sooner than expected" * Chart of the Day: Top 10 countries by robots per capita * Tony Hayward may walk away with $18 million. Imagine if he'd been competent... * Tim Geithner backed Elizabeth Warren during a Sunday morning interview. To me, it sounded like: "The White House has already made it's decision and I lost. No need to gripe about it publicly."

* Jeffrey Rosen: The Web means the end of forgetting * Some foreign private equity firms will face SEC regulations * Should the NYT reconsider its paywall plan, due to its digital ad sales growth? * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares climb and the Nikkei snaps its losing streak. * Chris Dixon with a great read on graphs * S&P's list of leveraged buyout candidates * Oracle plans to double its acquisition budget * AlpInvest's board considers a management buyout * Michael Arrington: Disney is about to acquire Playdom * Neil Hume: Is it really another lost decade for equities?

* Ann Handley: 7 business lessons from a lemonade stand * Chutzpah: "Placement agent" Al Villalobos says he plans to sue CalPERS * Blog wisdom: Old Spice's ad campaign is brilliant. Reality: Old Spice sales are down since it began. * Morning Call: U.S. futures signal rebound, London rises early, European shares climb and the Nikkei keeps sliding. * Michael Corkery: The great credit rating wimp-out * Is Julian Robertson planning to reopen his Tiger Management hedge fund? * Mark Gimein: Priceline survives despite its "name your own price" gimmick, not because of it. * The FCC reports that all is not well in the U.S. broadband market. As expected, broadband providers trash the FCC.

* R.I.P. Nexus One: 2010-2010 * Mark Humphery-Jenner: Why do large private equity funds earn lower returns? * Chris Dixon pushes back against forecasts of a seed-fund crash, saying that salvation comes in the form of smarter entrepreneurs. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher on Apple results, London rises early, European shares surge and the Nikkei dips. * FINS: The perfect M&A resume * Luke Timmerman: How biotech startups are learning to pinch pennies. * PIMCO begins selling black swan insurance. Does Nassim Taleb get royalties? * Europe's attempts to regulate alternative investments slogs on, with new draft language now available. * Facebook lawyer says he's "unsure" if Mark Zuckerberg signed away 83% of the company back in 2003. * After Obama signs the financial reform bill today, he plans to shift his attention toward housing policy. More specifically, he may reverse (or at least reduce) his predecessors' emphasis on home ownership. * Union Square Ventures threw a fundraiser for Chuck Schumer, who told them that "comprehensive immigration reform" would pass in 2011. To USV's Fred Wilson, that means startup visas and more H1B visas. To me, it just means Schumer was telling supporters what they wanted to hear.

* Ron Resnick: Why no restrictions on leverage? * How the financial reform bill could sting GE Capital * James Mann: Corporate America turns against China * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London opens flat, European shares keep skidding and the Nikkei drops 1.2%. * Bijan Sabet: Should startups bring on strategic investors? * 10 super-successful co-founders, and why their partnerships worked * Two VC-backed startups aim to change the economics of vaccine productions * The Big Money has launched a new blog called Cash Crop, about the big business of marijuana * Doug Kass: "Before Sunday, I had never met Nouriel Roubini. I came away from yesterday's lecture not learning more than when I entered but thinking that he is more well-intentioned and perhaps even more studious than I previously thought."

* Paul Volcker discusses his financial reform bill battles * KKR learned several flotation lessons from Blackstone Group * Roger Altman: "The poisonous dynamic between Washington and business must be fixed. Both sides should make adjustments, but the business community — of which I am a proud member — especially needs to make efforts to mend this relationship. Yes, the administration has made some mistakes. But, on balance, its actions have supported business." * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London falls early, European shares slip and the Nikkei is closed. * Mark Suster: What's really going on in the VC industry? * Charlie Gasparino: Lloyd Blankfein's days are numbered * John Paulson is in the "driver's seat" for an upcoming Harrah's IPO * Facebook co-founder says upcoming movie overplays sex & booze * Dan Frommer: Nokia's refusal to buy Palm may be one of the dumbest moves in handset history * Audio of interview with Bob Davoli of Sigma Partners. Includes some discussion of GlassHouse (in registration), Aprimo (filing soon) and Incipient (VC-backed bust).