Oh Pirates, Yes They Rob I.

Update to this post which I found funny: Pirates

News wires are flashing non-stop this morning as news of a counter offer to the $.10 Somali Pirate tender offer has hit the ticker tapes. In one of the boldest political moves yet, Russia and Venezuela have teamed up to offer a whopping $.11 per share for the right to own the once proud Citi franchise. The deal will be financed exclusively through securitized Venezuelan drilling right contracts and Russian natural gas derivatives. Hugo Chavez and pseudo-Russian Czar Vladimir Putin announced this morning their intention to buy the banking franchise at a 10% premium over the Somali Pirate bid from a fortified bungalow in the hills outside of Caracas. News of the bid has traveled fast, and industry professionals have started referring to the offer the Vladichavaputinhugostanezuela Deal, or VD, for short.

Head Pirate Ubu Kalid Shandu did not offer any indication as to whether the Pirate Federation will up the ante on its bid to control the banking giant, but did comment on the situation.

"I think that the Russians and Venezuelans better watch their assets if they know what is good for them. The world will see that VD is good for no one," he said as he sat in Pirate headquarters in downtown Mogadishu.

Tensions have been running high throughout the past two weeks as rhetoric has been coming from all sides. Prior rumors in the market included speculation that Congolese Rebel Groups and Thai Protestors were masquerading as banking clients worldwide in an attempt to takeover the banking titan by physical force. Those rumors died down after it became known that very little money was held at the bank, and that most of the assets were secured in the vaults of the Federal Reserve.

The VD comes at a tense time for the US economy, and its effects could easily spread to the rest of the market. These fears were only made worse as Vladimir Putin issued a written statement following his joint news conference with Hugo Chavez this morning.

"We have no intention of fixing this institution. In fact, the whole purpose of the VD is to wreak havoc on the health of the US financial system. We are hoping that if we keep pumping toxic assets into other areas of the economy that our liquidity problems will help spread the contagion."

Those words loom large on the minds of investors who in the pre-market hours have started a huge sell-off on Wall St. based largely on VD fears. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 6.2% in pre-market trading. Shipping stocks were also down in morning trading as fear that anger generated by the thwarted Somali Pirate deal would cause further backlash to the shipping industry.