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To: Bill Harmond who wrote (16961)	9/12/1998 12:38:00 AM
From: JimNewby	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I have yet to get into the Gov't web site for the Starr Report: house.gov it is always busy; however, I found it at ABC if you're interested: abcnews.com Jim

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (16961)	9/12/1998 8:44:00 AM
From: llamaphlegm	Respond to of 164684

<<<<Implied in your total-return-swap scenario is a transaction date. It doesn't matter to me when you think it occured, but it means a great deal to Jeff's net worth. If he did it in January he would be worth considerably less than if he did it in June. Such a transaction would require public notification, too, and it would be justifiably interpreted by the Street as the ultimate insider sale. It didn't happen. I'm not fired up about it at all; just poking holes in it.>>>>> William: You're making one error and one assumption that need not hold. 1. A total return swap or similar derivative transaction that monetizes his position or limits his downside need NOT be publicly reported -- I checked into this (otherwise do you think that they'd be so popular? otherwise there would not be such a broohaha over companies (as distinguished from M&D's) use of derivatives and their FASB accounting compliance) as HJM might say, on this one, trust me. 2. I fail to see why his precise net worth or the transaction date on which Jeff did a total return swap matters. My point is simply that any bull who claims that the owners (here Bezos) are financially tied to the company's performace, is largely wrong. As the article in last week's Barron's points out (quoting David Tice of the Prudent Bear) it's unclear that Bezos has proper financial incentives to manage the company in the most profitable way possible (ie there is a massive principal-agent problem where Bezos may be chasing a grandiose pipe dream of his own idiosyncratic view of the web or book sales and is willing to swing for the fences because if he does strike out, it's only the shareholders who lose not him (since his economic profit, massive as it already is, has already been assured by a derivative transaction). LP