Briac

* Why private equity returns are misleading* Fred Destin: The arrogant venture capitalist* Joshua Brown: The rally apologista's handbook* Preqin finds that 60% of private equity firms have either frozen salaries or are considering such a move. Moreover, 14% have cut staffers with another 12% mulling future layoffs.* Morning Call: U.S. futures signal mixed open, European shares extend losses, the Nikkei rally falls short and both China and Hong Kong shares drop on supply woes.* Get ready for Twoddler (i.e. Twitter for toddlers)* As the Supremes reconsider SOX, take a listen to the Sarbanes-Oxley Blues.* Original TARP overseer Neel Kashkari has taken a job with PIMCO. Felix Salmon wonders where else he could have gone.

* Trouble in UK buyout land: PAI Partners gets investor approval to cut its fund size by 50%, while Candover has extended its standstill agreement for new deals. * Coffee Wars: Green Mountain and Peet's battle for K-Cup control * David Lerner: What VCs do and don't like to see when looking at university spinouts * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei surges, Hong Kong loses 0.8% and China shares gain. * Mark Suster: Is strategic money an oxymoron? * Carbon funds grow despite problems * Does pharma corruption mean that scientists are about to become the new Hollywood villains? * Supply & Demand: On Sept. 26, more students took the LSATs than ever before. Problem is, there aren't enough law firms to absorb all the wannbes.

* Josh Kopelman: "Virality" is not a sales and marketing plan * Julian Delasantellis: It's time to end economist idolotry * Bryant Simon on the velevet revolt against brands, which is being illustrated by a new crop of stealth Starbucks that lack the company's name or familiar green logo. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares bounce back, the Nikkei slips on a Bank of Japan decision and Hong Kong and China shares gain. * IDD remembers Fred Joseph * Tom Hazlett: Putting a price tag on TV spectrum * ABA Journal: The best blogs and Twitter accounts for lawyers, by lawyers * Charlie Gasparino: Is Goldman Sachs' investment banking operation becoming second-tier?

* Who's hiring (and who's not) in Asia? * Bing's top searches for 2009: Michael Jackson bests Twitter and Swine Flu * Comscore: Black Friday online spending up 11% (Amazon took the top spot, edging out Walmart.com) * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London falls early, European shares slip on oil, the Nikkei jumps 2.9% and both China and Hong Kong rise. * Michael Arrington: What if Steve Jobs hadn't returned to Apple in 1997? * James Surowiecki: Why the Chinese don't spend * Knowledge @Wharton: Managing layoffs, and motivating those left behind * TechFlash: There is "a growing sentiment in the tech industry that the big social networks have achieved a critical mass that makes them practically untouchable to potential competitors (though perhaps not to potential acquirers). That affects the strategies not just of Microsoft but also of Amazon.com and countless tech startups."

* Best. Email. Exchange. Ever. * Neil Unmack: Dubai must recover investor faith * John Gapper: Dubai's financial crash mirrors that of Florida * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower on Dubai jitters, European shares rebound, the Nikkei keeps falling and both Hong Kong and Chinese shares retreat. * 50 pick-up lines for nerds * Laurie Sullivan: Why Google will buy Milo.com * Q&A with Blackstone Group's Steve Schwarzman

* How to murder your company in 10 easy steps * Australia sticks TPG with a $628 million tax bill * Felix Salmon revisists Chicago's parking meter privatization. Seems to me that this dispute is the very type of thing Carlyle Group is trying to avoid in its public-private structure for the Connecticut highway stops (as opposed to a pure privatization). * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, European shares boosted by financials and commodities, the Nikkei rises in choppy trade and both China and Hong Kong shares recover losses. * Wharton profs: M&A is back, but this time it's different * The Obama administration's energy push has spurred a shift in U.S. science. In related news, the DoE handed out another $620 million in smart grid grants. * The FDIC falls into the red for the first time since the S&L crisis, although "the bulk of that negative balance reflects money the agency has set aside to cover future bank failures."

* Fred Destin: How a great entrepreneur deals with complexity * Reddit's divorce from Conde Nast: How a social media dream deal fell apart. * SEC told to change the way it chooses investigations, in order to avoid the type of breakdowns that led to Madoff. * Morning Call: U.S. futures mixed, London rises early, European shares extend losses, the Nikkei falls 0.5% and both Hong Kong and China shares lose ground. * Tim O'Reilly: The war for the Web * What corporate America is reading * Marvin Clark: 10 reasons to believe we're in a depression * I'm still in LA, but good to hear the home state's unemployment rate actually dropped last month (which is different than growing more slowly).

* John Thain mulls move to private equity. * Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin: The 8 best questions we got while raising venture capital * Felix Salmon: "Is it OK for a financial services professional who has run into major trouble with the law to simply move over to journalism and cover the same asset class there?" * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares keep tumbling, the Nikkei hits 4-month closing low and Chinese shares keep gaining. * Heineken CEO says the decade he spent in Africa was “certainly worth three times Harvard Business School.” * As electric cars arrive, where will they plug in? * Mark Suster: VC funding season effectively ends this week.

* Carl Icahn is buying up MGM bonds "like a bat out of hell." * Someone in Yale's endowment office needs to take an undergraduate math course. * FT blares headline that Apollo Management is planning an IPO. Not too surprising (we even hinted at it in this space last week), but FT does give us some new intel on the pay-to-play investigation: "Apollo has received subpoenas from California, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York, and from the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York and Denver" * Morning Call: U.S. futures point to mixed open, London rises early, European shares near 13-month high, the Nikkei hits 6-week closing low and China shares gain 0.62%. * Fred Wilson's brute force strategy for finding good deals? 10 meetings per day. * Tear down this wall: On the persistence of borders in trade. * Scott Kirsner: New England's economy is playing five games, but winning only two. * Digg CEO Jay Adelson says that profitability is right around the corner, thanks to its new ad platform.

* IBM is doing venture capital without the capital. * The wonder of it all: Apollo Management has been buying up debt in struggling Connecticut casino Foxwoods. * PAI Partners has gone further than almost any other buyout firm, in terms of its willingness to reduce its bloated fund size. But, for one major LP, it still isn't far enough. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares pulled down by banks, the Nikkei loses 0.6% and Chinese shares hit 3-month closing high. * Is the UK's majority-rules M&A system preferable to America's board-dominated process, or does it promote short-termism? * Jason Mendelson: Why don't venture capitalists tell you why they won't invest? * The Economist says that options have a future, but reform is justified * FactCheck.org finds that current cap-and-trade legislation would likely slow job growth, but not by as much as its critics are claiming.