Briac

* Lauren Silva Laughlin: Questions Cuomo should be asking Carlyle. * A look at what the SARS panic did to the stock market six years ago. * Henry Kravis sees "a few rays of sunshine." Morning Call: U.S. futures down sharply on news that Citi and BoA may need more federal cash, London drops early, European shares lower on swine flu worries, the Nikkei falls 2.7% and Hong Kong is off nearly 2 percent. * Jenn Abelson: The duct-tape economy. * VC-backed bust: Robotic toy maker Ugobe has filed for Chapter 7, after raising around $25 million.

* Let's make a deal: Chrysler and the UAW reach an agreement that satisfies the fed government's requirements for the automaker to get more financing. * Michael Bloomberg defends Steve Rattner. Now if only Rattner would come out of hiding and speak for himself. * Morning Call: U.S. futures fall on swine flu fears, London down early, European shares drop, the Nikkei rises and Hong Kong shares hit a three-week low. * Buyouts Magazine (sub req): Need a vacation from the denominator effect? Head abroad. * Allan Frank: Why did Ken Lewis go along with the cover-up? * Felix Salmon gets seduced by The Lending Club, a P2P lender that has raised nearly $30 million from venture capitalists. * This WSJ editorial is absolutely correct that certain states should lift the artificial caps put on the number of Teach for America folks working in their schools. I have two very close friends who were part of Teach for America, and each complained at the time that their schools -- one in Arkansas, one in southern Texas -- were painfully understaffed. Or perhaps some sort of recruiting/relocation program to import the legions of laid-off teachers in more affluent areas...

* Floyd Norris on corporate subprime (i.e., bad leveraged loans). It's the next fiscal shoe to drop and, like with subprime mortgages, we really don't know where all the bad stuff is sitting, or how much of it there is. * Is North Dakota the new Delaware? * A look back at the top Web properties of April 1999, in light of Yahoo announcing that it will pul the plug on GeoCities (#6). * Morning Call: U.S. futures are mixed (Ford is up 12%), London rises early, European shares jump, the Nikkei falls 1.6% of JFE and autos and Hong Kong shares edge higher. * Candover gets takeover proposals. * How cleantech companies should go about getting stimulus dollars. The first step is to act now. * Angel investing today is where VC was 25 years ago. * B-school bashing is totally in vogue right now, and Michael Jacobs is the latest to pile on.

* Dr. Doom isn't lightening up. * Did economists ruin business schools? * Wilson Sonsini releases its Venture Financing Term Sheet Generator (h/t Jason). * U.S. Treasury offers to restructure Chrysler's debt, but the two sides still seem far apart. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London opens flat, European shares turn positive on commodities, the Nikkei rises 1.4% and Hong Kong reverses its recent slide. * Neal Gabler: The Hollywoodization of Wall Street. * Steve Ballmer says Microsoft isn't interested in hardware acquisitions. * Chadwick Matlin: Want to save your favorite TV show? Stop watching it on television.

* KKR doesn't plan to participate in the PPIP. Nothing too surprising there, particularly given that the firm has called down over 70% of its general fund, and is facing a very difficult fund-raising environment for the next one. * Michael Kinsley on the Rattner situation, which just got even messier yesterday. To me, this whole thing is like a prostitute/john situation -- in which only one of the two actors is being prosecuted. I'm not just talking Rattner, but also Leuschen and others who allegedly did far more than just pay a crooked "placement agent." Also worth wondering if the tentative agreement between Quadrangle and its LPs can hold through the Friday "key-man" vote deadline. I think it can, but three days is an eternity. * Morning Call: U.S. futures lower on earnings caution, London rises early, European shares up as banks offset Roche, the Nikkei edged higher and Hong Kong closes at a two-week low. * The end of Bob Nardelli. Again.

* LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman shares his three rules of investing. Sarah Lacey presses Reid on his support for government entry into venture capital. * The day in New York kickback scandal: New Mexico has suspended its advisory relationship with Aldus Equity and Hank Morris helped Quadrangle secure commitments beyond NY Common (which we already knew, although not with the specifics). * Morning Call: Wall Street futures point higher, London rises early, European shares up on retailers, the Nikkei falls on bank fears and Hong Kong gets felled by blue chips. * Lauren Silva Loughlin: Is GE now the bellweather for global stimulus packages? * Dave Weidner: Banks need to admit they're not lending, and that it's okay. * Red Sox owner John Henry may be willing to acquire the Boston Globe, as part of a deal to buy the NYT Co's stake in his team. Don't expect syndicate partners on this (if it happens), because Henry isn't usually too keen on such things.

Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and former Opsware exec Ben Horowitz are hoping to raise around $250 million for their debut venture capital fund, peHUB has learned. If you just heard a choking sound, it's probably coming from your own throat (or that of your closest LP). What I mean is that $250 million is an extraordinary amount of capital for a first-time, early-stage fund. Andreessen said in February that initial investments would average just $500,000 (a fivefold increase from the $100k that he and Horowitz currently invest out of their own pockets). That would work out to more than 100 portfolio companies, even if you assume that the fund would quadruple-down on every investment (which it won't). Andreesen and Horowitz plan to thin the bloated portfolio size by complimenting their seed deals with a handful of $5 million-ish Series A plays, but I'd think the firm would really need to average $10 million per company to make things manageable.

* How to extend a TARP? Convert the bank bailout loans into common equity. * Gabriel Sherman: The rage of the privileged top 1% as it loses its privileges. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London flat in early trading, European shares fall on banks and miners, the Nikkei edges up on steel and Hong Kong keeps rising. * Silicon Valley's unemployment rate hits 11 percent. * The psychology of pricing in mergers and acquisitions: "In particular, offer prices are highly influenced by the target's 52-week high stock price. This price probably serves as a psychological anchor-a starting point from which actual bid prices do not sufficiently adjust to reflect only current information." * Don Dodge: Is Twitter a case of macromyopia? In barely-related news, Boston Marathoners are tweeting from the starting lines. * Nichola Groom: Recession is slowing water investment to a drip.

* Don't let the facts get in the way of an otherwise lovely tea party: New data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed that "the federal income tax burden is already hovering near its lowest level in three decades for all but the wealthiest Americans" * CDC, an emerging markets fund-of-funds manager takes 15% markdown in 2008. That's actually not so bad, and maybe makes some "developed market" investors jealous. * Morning Call: U.S. futures flat on Citigroup and GE results, London lower in early trading, European shares are up, the Nikkei rises 1.7% and Hong Kong closes higher for the sixth-straight week. * Why an infamous online image board could soon overtake both Ashton Kutcher and CNN for Twitter dominance. On the other hand, I'm not sure anyone will be able to hold off Oprah. * Five rules for getting your idea off the ground. * Carl Icahn: It's up to shareholders, not government, to demand change at a company. Speaking of Icahn, what's going on with his blog? Barely updated. Paging Dane Hamilton...

* Facebook reportedly rejects more money. Eric Eldon focuses on the valuation, but I want to know who the prospective "private equity" investors were. First Skype, now Facebook? Is private equity finally moving into Internet tech (as Erin suggested yesterday)? * Treasury Dep't says U.S. bank lending decreased in February. * Sam Zell on Tribune acquisition: "I made a mistake." * Morning Call: U.S. futures fall as General Growth's bankruptcy offsets J.P. Morgan's earnings, London up early, European shares extend gains, the Nikkei's gains vanish after China's GDP report and Hong Kong falls on that same data. * PIPE issuance drops in Q1, following a relatively soft 2008 (save for those injections into the banking sector, like WaMu). * Last week, we wrote about an academic study that found business plans are mostly a waste of time, vis-a-vis raising venture capital. Venture capitalist Healy Jones has some additional thoughts. * Kleiner Perkins fix-it guy Mike Long is now at Terralliance. * Sarah Lacy vs. The NY Times, as reported by the New York Observer. The only winner is everyone's Comscore.