great post, by the way - I save the whole thing.

One I just read about - suppose you want to run up, and then run down, a stock. You get a buddy at another crap stock company to make an official, real offer for the company, which he has not the slightest intention of following through on after "market conditions change" or whatever. The price rockets. You sell.

Then your buddy says the stock that was run up is really disappointing and he's not buying. The stock plummets.

This happens every day, every day. So when you hear of a buyout offer or an offer for anything, realize that the press was put out there for a reason. Sometimes, legit-seeming "big" companies do it to help out a friend.