Word Problems for Future Hedge Fund Managers –McSweeney’s
1. Dick has $1 million. Jane has $1 million. If Dick and Jane both give their $1 million to T. Boone, how many millions will he claim he can turn it into?
2. On his way home from school, Kyle stops to buy a candy bar. It costs [...]
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What the wonder twins would take the form of if they were sent to correct the subprime mortgage crisis –McSweeney’s
Take two of the three stacks of money you find in there. Leave one. That will confuse the insurance guy. He’s not going to know whether it was an inside job or not. If it’s [...]
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Broadcom Co-Founder Faces Conspiracy and Drug Charges -NYT
Federal officials unsealed one indictment Thursday alleging co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III of chip maker Broadcom Corp. spiked the drinks of technology executives and customer representatives with ecstasy and maintained a warehouse for ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine.
A second indictment unsealed Thursday accuses him of conspiracy, securities fraud and [...]
Shake-Up at French Bank After Trading Scandal
Once expected to succeed Mr. Bouton at the helm of the bank, Mr. Mustier was in charge of all investment banking and trading during the period that a trader, Jérôme Kerviel, accumulated 50 billion euros, or $77.7 billion, in unauthorized bets, which cost Société Générale 4.9 billion euros to [...]
How One Smoker Quit -Freakonomics
A few weeks ago, we posted an item about an ad executive in Australia named James Hurman who auctioned off his smoking habit, agreeing to pay a steep fine (about $800) for every cigarette he smoked after the auction closed. He wound up selling the contract, he writes, “for NZ $300 [...]
Did China’s pandas know the quake was coming? -NewScientist
the pandas at Wolong roused themselves in the minutes before the quake struck and began acting "in a strange manner".
Most of the "evidence" is anecdotal, but it can be compelling. Buffalo were said to have stampeded to the top of a hill just before the Asian [...]
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French police arrest former EADS chief -Guardian
Two judges and the French market regulator, AMF, have been investigating allegations that 17 current and former EADS executives, including Forgeard, exercised stock options when they were party to privileged information about deteriorating profits at Airbus.
Landowners trampled in gas rush -CNN Money
Unsuspecting property owners around the country are getting [...]
Gawker, paraphrasing a Wall Street Journal article regarding JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, posts Anecdotes Prove Bear Stearns Savior Is A Jerk.
…two of the best anecdotes in the piece do nothing but make him look like a snippy asshole…
Tell us something we don’t know Gawker. You don’t become ruler of the House of Morgan by [...]
4 Bold Business Scams (And Why They Failed Miserably) - mental_floss
Starting a legitimate business is hard, boring work. There’s paperwork to fill out, employees to hire, and all sorts of other drudgery, not to mention the biggest hurdle of all: providing a product or service for which customers are willing to pay. In all likelihood, [...]
As fuel prices soar, rustlers pilfer barrels of used cooking oil to make biodiesel - IHT
A few years ago, drums of used french fry grease were only of interest to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes.
Now, restaurants from Berkeley, California, to Sedgwick, [...]
You Can’t Afford To Go To The Movies. Thanks, Ethanol!
Ethanol, the stupid fuel that the government loves for some reason, is going to take up 40% of next year’s corn crop. Movie theaters make nearly half of their money from concessions, and a third of that money comes from popcorn sales. When concession prices [...]
For Wall Street Workers, Ax Falls Quietly
People on Wall Street seem to be vanishing overnight.
Thousands are losing their jobs as hard-pressed banks cut deep. But while layoffs are nothing new in the financial industry (they come with almost every downturn), this round seems different: it is eerily quiet.
There’s Triumph of the Optimists, a great book on the markets:
Triumph motorcycles kick ass:
Triumph the band rocks (rocked?), fight the good fight, yeahhhhh:
Now there’s Triumph of the Bullshit, a collection of oddities and, bullshit:
A few of my favorites
Dunning-Kruger effect The phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more [...]
Slinky: good
Crocs: good
Slinky dog: good
Crocs with high heels: bad
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Whenever there’s anything having anything to do with the markets, any market, every market, in the world, that I can’t understand or explain, I just universally blame it on Greenspan. He’s my catch-all scapegoat.
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Mad Science: A Chinese Cure for Internet Addiction
Yep, Monkeys Like Porn Too
Yet another seemingly human-like bit of monkey behavior: apparently monkeys are willing to pay for sex as well as trade juice for porn. That’s right, the world’s oldest profession has made inroads into the animal kingdom — Animal Behavior reported earlier this year that male macaques in Indonesia were known to [...]
Young Artists Find a Private Space, Only Without the Privacy
One “room” is a cramped cubby that measures, in all, perhaps 25 square feet, just enough for a full-size mattress and whatever can be stashed beneath. The first-floor rooms, in the basement, are musty and windowless, like caves. The second-floor rooms have plywood walls but no [...]
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5 Ways to Go Broke Getting Drunk
When does a shot of scotch cost $3,300? When the bottle’s going for $38,000 and hits $75,000 in a bidding war. Amazing Google capability: Enter ‘number of shots in a liter’ into Google Toolbar and before you hit enter AJAX serves up the answer of 22.5426817 shots, which [...]
The more George Soros talks, the less people care what he thinks.
Don’t fuck with a good thing
New York’s Original Kazoo Co. stays true to name
The name of the place says it all: The Original Kazoo Co. And, boy, do its owners mean original.
The same belt and pulley machines that stamped and shaped the world’s first metal kazoos circa 1900 still stamp and shape kazoos today. The machines are still in [...]