$$$Shorting the Government, cont. [Long or Short Capital]

$$$Can anything stop THE GOOGLE? [Business Wire Daily]

$$$More Aleksey-related news. [New York Sun via Banker's Ball]

$$$Dentsply (XRAY) [WallStrip]

Returning to DealBreaker’s coverage of the nuclear pupil explosion of insightfulness that is the Yahoo! Personal Finance website, today we review Penelope Trunk’s latest column. According to Yahoo! Personal Finance, “The Brazen Careerist” Penelope Trunk, former marketing executive and professional beach volleyball player (Impossible really is nothing!), “writes counterintuitive but effective career advice for a new generation of workers, where she explains why old advice -- like pay your dues, climb the ladder, and don't have gaps in your resume -- is outdated and irrelevant in today's workplace.”

DealBreaker’s *shocking* discovery is that almost all of the advice administered on Yahoo! Personal Finance is so bland, so generic and so impersonal, that it can be applied to almost anything, including (but not limited to) Asian Butterfly Escorts.

So, here it is, Penelope’s “Top Tips for Giving Yourself More Time,” (completely unaltered!) applied to an Asian Butterfly Escort: (after the jump)

Sources tell DealBreaker that Dell CEO Kevin Rollins is out at the company as chief exec, and founder and chair Michael Dell is in. Apparently people have been waiting for Michael to pull the plug on Rollins and "people view this as a positive catalyst...their [Dell's] performance has sucked and so we think the Street will give ole Mikey a pass on Q4." Sources expect stock price to go up by as much a $1.25.

Update: Reuters confirms the shake-up.

As of 4:50, "Dell shares up 7.1% to $25.94 in late trading," according to MarketWatch.

Returning to CNN’s list of the “Dumbest Moments in Business,” otherwise dominated by Wal-Mart, here is a clip that highlights some pretty obnoxious ways people have been laid off in the past year. It’s nice to see CNN completely stealing VH1’s “Best Week Ever”/’every other show it produces’ format. The sad thing is that the actual corporate events are way funnier than the commentary. The clip details the Northwest Airlines ‘How to be an efficient homeless person’ guide distributed to former employees and Bank of America’s mandatory (in the sense that getting your severance is “mandatory”) training of outsourced replacements.

The Video - [CNN]

March 30 will be the day Altria finally rids itself of the dead weight that is Kraft Foods Inc, Bloomberg reports. For every share of Altria, investors will get 0.7 share of Kraft. As we noted earlier this morning, this spin-off will allow the units to focus on separate interests, Oreos/Tang vs. cigarettes, while remaining committed to the mutual goal of screwing the youth of tomorrow, by whatever poison possible (trans fats versus tobacco). (Here at the DB HQs, we’re content to merely do it through poor attitudes and ineffectual discourse).

Fourth quarter profits at Altria increased 29% to $2.96 billion ($1.40/share), due to higher Marlboro prices and overseas sales. Revenue swelled 3.7% to $25.4 billion. 4Q profits at Kraft declined for the first time in four and half years. Net income dropped to $624 millino (38 cents/share); sales dropped 3% to $9.37 billion.

Altria to Spin Off Kraft Unit in March to Spur Growth [Bloomberg]

The latest string of Schumer and Bloomberg refutations are out (even since the opening bell), concerning the dynamic duo’s alarmist report about the impending decline of NYC’s financial dominance due to SarbOx and precluded by mass IPO relocation. To summarize a couple recent responses: The New Yorker’s Financial Page argues that the IPO migration is mostly a byproduct of large-scale privatization of former foreign government enterprise and SarbOx hasn’t hurt the market, evident by its growth. Adam Lashinsky of Fortune takes this stance one step further, pointing to the growth in the number of venture backed companies that went public in the U.S. in 2006 and the increase in the amount of money raised by domestic IPOs per IPO. Lashinsky also says the strength of the U.S. IPO market is self-evident in fact that some of the largest tech IPOs are still looking to trade on U.S. exchanges, not foreign ones.

IPOs still love U.S. markets – [Fortune via CNNMoney]
Over There – [New Yorker]

Bush’s “State of the Economy” speech is happening rightthissecond at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Unlike the State of the Union, the SE is not an annual party, but one delivered at the whim of the Commander in Chief, whenever he has a premonition that his numbers are bad enough that he needs to book a seat on the Acela from Union Station to Penn and tout something “good” as the work of his own nimble fingers. So far, Bushie-boy has reckoned that "America's capital markets are the deepest, the broadest and the most efficient in the world," and has called for changes to Sar-Box, specifically Section 404, stating that we “don’t need to change the law, we need to change the way the law is implemented.” Groundbreaking stuff, eh? Well it wasn’t just a waste of time and $180 for the Dubya. Incidentally, he’s also inconvenienced those of you who actually work on Wall Street, too.

[11:46] ClipperJCM: So President Fool is speaking in the building next door, and as a consequence, I can't leave the building to get coffee.
[11:48] ohbabyitsbess: that seems like an unusually restrictive security measure
[11:48] ohbabyitsbess: no coffee in the vicinity of the president?
[11:57] ClipperJCM: Starbucks is across the street.
[11:57] ClipperJCM: And of course I dislike Starbucks, but sometimes it serves the purpose
[11:57] ClipperJCM: At the moment, I can't cross the street.
[11:58] ClipperJCM: Dunkin Donuts is my preferred haunt. It's down Broad Street, and I can't walk that way without passing through the phalanx of Secret Service
[11:58] ohbabyitsbess: i suppose a trump building badge does not interest the secret service
[11:59] ClipperJCM: it'll get me back onto my own block
[11:59] ClipperJCM: and into my building
[11:59] ClipperJCM: but I won't be able to cross over to blocks with decent coffee
[11:59] ClipperJCM: my only option is the horrible little stand in our building
[11:59] ClipperJCM: or suicide
[12:00] ohbabyitsbess: 6-1, half a dozen to the other

Bush says lawsuits, regulations hurting markets [Reuters]

The first of the U.S. Commerce Department reports is out this morning; showing 2006 GDP growth in Q4 of 3.5%, up from 2% in Q3 and 3.2% in Q4 of 2005. This surpassed the consensus of economic experts by half a per cent. The other major highlight from the report is a dip in inflation (or at least a tempering of the inflation surges in Q2 and Q3), aided by a 0.8% fall in the government’s price index for personal expenditures.

Boeing, up almost 5% after morning trading, doubled Q4 net income and experienced 26% revenue growth in response to the robust blowing the crap out of things aviation market.

U.S. Economy Grows 3.5%; Inflation Gauge Falls Sharply – [WSJ]
Boeing's Net More Than Doubles On Surge in Jetliner Orders – [WSJ]

Jeffrey Toobin’s New Yorker article sheds some light on Google’s semi-surreptitious book scanning efforts. Google plans to scan every book in the world (minimum 32 million) to create a comprehensive Google Book Search tool that would provide references and quotations to the volumes in its database. The Company has been scanning every book currently in the public domain, plundering the libraries of major state and private universities like Michigan and Stanford. Recently, however, Google has been cut off from scanning books not in the public domain (copyrighted volumes) from private universities because they don’t want to get sued.

Publishers have a problem with Google’s scanning; namely, they aren’t getting any cash for it. The legal battle Google faces is over copyrighted books. 20% of all books are in the public domain and free to scan and reproduce, 10% are in print and under copyright, and most of the rest are under copyright but out of print or restricted in some other fashion.

Google’s argument is that Google Books is basically a glorified card catalogue, and will merely point to sources rather than produce them entirely upon search. The publisher’s argument is that Google is going to profit from such ‘pointing,’ so it better give a little slice to publishers/authors like any other such enterprise. The consensus among people in the dispute is that a settlement is likely. This will actually help Google, creating a significant cash barrier to entry in the electronic book compiling market. What is paper thin police tape to Google is an entire barricade to most other companies.

Google is not Wikipedia, and despite its desires to ‘not be evil,’ the $150bn megalith’s path toward owning all the written information on the planet, whether it’s merely a ‘portal’ or not, is a bit daunting. Where’s crippling bureaucracy when you need it, or at least something to make Google seem less like the ultra-efficient assimilation machine Borg and more like the rather bumbling Vogons?

Google’s Moon Shot – [New Yorker]

The son of Senator Joe Biden (who is quite charming, a great story-teller and has the perfect hair for a white house)*, R. Hunter Biden, a Washington lobbyist, is being sued by Anthony Lolito Jr. Lolito claims Biden (and his partner-uncle James) kept him out of the purchase of a hedge fund investment firm in 2006. The firm is Paradigm Cos., based in New York. Lolito maintains that the Bidens lied to him about an offer so that they could negotiate a better deal alone.

Earlier this month, the junior Biden resigned from “daily oversight” of Paradigm Global Advisors LLC, a division of Paradigm Cos. that manages hedge fund investments; he remains a lobbyist for the firm.

*Update(And yes, “JB + BL” is written inside a pink heart on the front of my Trapper Keeper. We all have our demons). Just read the Observer piece. So, that's interesting. I have decided, after not so careful consideration, to withdraw my endorsement of Sen. Biden in favor of the wildly succeful and not at all nebbishy (though oft erroneously pegged as such) NJ Gov. Jon S. Corzine. Thank you and good night.

Biden, Senator's Son, Is Sued Over Purchase of Hedge-Fund Firm [Bloomberg]

Not too long ago, Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in order to distance itself from those pesky little cancer sticks it did such a great job of selling—specifically, Marlboro brand cigarettes. But apparently it wasn’t the cigarettes that were the dead weight. Altria is spinning off its Krafts Foods division, which makes Oreos, Tang, and a bunch of other products cigarettes are too good to associate themselves with. The split was originally announced in October; today, Altria’s chief executive, Louis c. Camilleri will set a timetable for the spinoff’s completion (shares have risen 10% since the split was announced).

An analyst from Citigroup, which just can’t seem to catch a break, told the New York Times “The exciting part for me…is that tobacco use today will evolve. It’s unlikely that there will ever be a 100 percent safe cigarette, but we feel that a reduced-risk cigarette is on the horizon.” Sounds like dropping the Kraft Foods fatties was a shrewd move for Altria. With advent of cigarettes that don’t-cause-cancer-but-will-most-likely-still-cause-things-like- Emphysema-discolored-nails-ashtray-smelling-breath-etc, shares are sure to shoot through the roof.

Tobacco’s Stigma Aside, Wall Street Finds a Lot to Like [NYT]

Following in Hollywood hedge fund operator Benjamin Waisbren and Co.'s (possibly failed) footsteps, Citigroup will be funding at least 45 movies over the next five years, in conjunction with the privately held Relativity Media. Ryan Kavanaugh, an executive at Relativity Media, brokered the deal, and previously worked with Deutsche Bank to finance 18 movies to be made by Sony and Universal Studios over the next two years. No word on whether a $Honey movie-of-the-week will be included in the 45, but, for the most part, it can pretty much be assumed. (Gotta start making those trademark application fees earn their keep, you know?)

CITI'S FILM SEED [NYPost]

Bristol-Myers hires banks for sale advice
Everybody knows that it's a bad idea to just reach into your parents' medicine cabinet and mix their pharmaceuticals, unless you want to get high. Mixing pharmaceutical companies will probably lead to the same result, but it's pretty dangerous. Although there's nothing official yet in terms of a Bristol-Myers/Sanofi deal (wonder what they'd call the company), word is is that Bristol-Myers has hired Lehman and Morgan to help it work out a deal. So, deal or no deal, the company is definitely interested in something.

Drug Safety Oversight Will Be Strengthened, U.S. Says (Bloomberg)
Yeah, because the FDA does such a good job in its current capacity, riiiight. No, in all seriousness, does anyone feel comfortable now that the FDA will expand its oversight of drugs after they've been released to the market? Yes, in a sense, this should bring some measure of comfort to those currently taking medicines, that the long-term effects are being studied, but given how much of a burden the FDA already is, and how many good treatments get taken off the market because of a few spots of bad data, this seems like it could easily cause more pain than it's worth.

Is Wall Street Really Losing Its Edge? (Dealbook)
Now that Chuck Schumer is on the anti-SarbOx bandwagon, penning articles with mayor Bloomberg about how Wall St. is deteriorating, everything is hunky dory, right? Well, it's great to have someone like Schumer unexpectedly reach his conclusion about SarbOx, but maybe he got there for reasons that aren't so appealing. Maybe it's just a form of populism -- like if he were from South Carolina, he'd be writing op-eds about the textile industry going overseas. What looks like a free-market position might not be so principled. And maybe Wall St. isn't doing that badly. Certainly the staggering earnings and record bonuses don't portend much doom, except from a contrarian point of view. And other things, like the global dispersion of IPOs may not be as damning as originally thought.

Baquet Rejoins Times as Washington Bureau Chief (NYT)
The grunt reporters at the Times are gonna love this. The Paper of Record has hired Dean Baquet to be its Washington Bureau Chief. Dean Baquet stands somewhere between Joe Hill and Casey Jones, in the eyes of many, for his one-man fight against Tribune Co. management, when, as the chief at the LA Times, he refused to institute the job cuts that were demanded of him. This radical insubordination certainly earned him a lifetime of speaking to college J-schools about the good old days of the craft -- in the short term, it got him a gig at the Times.

$$$Hedgie Milestones [WSJ]

$$$Wharton girl looking for ibanker-- preferably VPs+ and preferably bulge bracket firms. [Craigslist]

$$$Wall Streeters Make Crain’s Under-40 List [DealBook]

The official alliance between the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) may be announced tomorrow on January 31. Then again, it may not. Who knows? Certainly not the Wall Street Journal. The alliance would coincide with NYSE’s recent global expansion that included last month’s acquisition of Euronext and buying a 20% stake in India’s National Stock Exchange.

Regarding the recent splurge of acquisitions, John Thain, CEO of NYSE Group, commented, “If You Ain't Outta Control (from the regulatory ambiguity caused by the increased globalization of markets), You Ain't In Control (of many of the world’s exchanges),” then rode off in a really tweaked out Eclipse.

NYSE Group (NYSE: NYX) is up slightly in today’s trading, at $100.18.

NYSE, Tokyo Stock Exchange Are 'Very Close' to an Alliance – [WSJ]

A reader recently asked our friend over at Information Arbitrage: “Where should I start - banking or trading?"

IA, as always, gave a great answer, but in his haste, left out a few key points that we think the questioner would also appreciate, in order to make the most well-informed decision possible. If any of you DB readers out there are also trying to make this monumental decision, read on.

I’d say, in general, that it is hard if not impossible to move from banking into trading, whereas the converse is not necessarily true. While I did “this” [don’t you just love quotations? I sprinkle them everywhere I go because I like to see myself quoted and then when I see myself quoted I smile and do little air quotes to myself] (banking into trading) let me be clear: I have never actually traded. [Which is to say—gotcha! I bet I had you fooled just then, when I was all “I did ‘this’ (banking to trading)”!] I have run massive groups of traders and run large books of risk, but this is not trading. I was a trading manager. Do I wish I had actually traded at some point? Yes. [Do I wish I hadn’t taped over the series finale of 90210 with last Wednesday’s Mad Money? Yes.] But once I was a successful banker and derivatives pro was this ever going to happen? No. [Can I go back in time and not tape over what I’d regard as one of the finest 60 minutes in television history? No. I lack the capabilities—currently—to time travel.]

Former Merrill Lynch tech analyst Henry Blodget’s latest “Bad Advice” column is a lament over the current state of the financial mainstream, in which hapless day traders listen to Jim Cramer and plug away at E*Trade accounts to disappointing returns (or so he figures).

Blodget does have an impressive resume when it comes to bad advice. Blodget was ousted from his last day job for manipulating research to boost Merrill IB clients and barred from the securities industry.

That stock picks of pop-financial “experts” are not the most sound investment is hardly a new point, and is often times more effectively made with dart-throwing monkeys than someone who gets tasered if he comes near the Merrill Lynch bull (although if we could taser dart throwing monkeys, I would watch that in a heartbeat, and Fox needs to give me credit when they air this).

Cramer’s TV-picked portfolio did perform poorly against the S&P 500 last year, but so did almost everything else, and Blodget does concede that his ire springs from what is essentially a tale of two Cramers, that:

Reviewing the list of common Mad Money show segments (Stump the Cramer, Am I Nuts?, Pimpin' All Over the World) and sound effects (squealing pigs, a wrecking train, a toilet flushing, a screaming man falling out a window and then crashing on the ground), I realized that, yes, I was taking Jim Cramer waaaaaay too seriously, that his nonstop comedy routine about being a brilliant and respected investor and making everyone rich is just shtick, and that there couldn't possibly be a Mad Money viewer who actually believes that he provides intelligent advice.

The reality TV incarnation of Cramer is in stark contrast with Cramer the Harvard Law School graduate, arguably successful hedge fund manager and serious columnist, but not Cramer the total nutjob.

Pay No Attention to That Crazy Man on TV – [Slate]
Stock-Picker Showdown: Blodget vs. Cramer – [DealBook]

At least according to Bloomberg’s Michael Lewis. And why, pray tell, is it appropriate to refer to the 5-day long E-binge as such?

1. A lot of people say a lot of things at Davos but no one really has the cojones to, you know, ‘say’ anything.

Examine the public statements extruded by the World Economic Forum any year and you'll find the same warmed-over prudence, the same dreary feeling that someone is about to punctuate the nebulous tedium with a proposal to create a commission.

2. Phonies wanted.

Davos is where people with no talent for risk-taking gather to imagine what actual risk-takers might do. Davos Man needs to sit in judgment; Davos Man needs to brood. So great is this need that he will brood about virtually anything, no matter how little he knows about it.

3. We haven't seen this much overthetop worrying such we attended the 1987 Jewish Mom Expo at Nassau Colisseum.

``The surging demand for derivatives is making financial markets more vulnerable to any slowdown in the global economy.''
The piece came with supporting quotes from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, Bank of China Vice President Zhu Min and the deputy chief of India's planning commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia -- but not a worrisome fact in sight. None of them seemed to understand that when you create a derivative you don't add to the sum total of risk in the financial world; you merely create a means for redistributing that risk. They have no evidence that financial risk is being redistributed in ways we should all worry about. They're just -- worried.

4. Most of the people who attended this thing spend their days in bubble baths while being fed bon bons and having US Weekly read aloud to them. The ones with heroin problems hold out their arms at various intervals and have someone who actually bears the title “heroin injector” inject the drug into their pliable (as a result of inactivity) veins.

Even if these global financial elites knew something useful that you and I don't -- that, say, 50 hedge funds were about to go under and drag with them half the world's biggest banks along with a third of the Third World -- they would be unlikely to do anything about it.

5. The reason people go to Davos is because it makes them feel good about themselves in ways their mothers (fathers/husband/swives/doormen/dry cleaners) never did.

…perhaps the only point of standing in the snow and expressing your doubts to a television camera to prove that you are the sort of person whose doubts matter…

Davos Is for Wimps, Ninnies, Pointless Skeptics [Bloomberg]

You know that friend of yours, who’s really a great girl with looks and personality and that special something who, inexplicably, is constantly drawn to scumbags? That sort of magnetism seems to be at work between PIPEs and hedge funds run by people who are/or are involved with criminals, as discussed in Forbes’s “Sewer Pipes,” this week. If you suspect that your neighbor was able to afford that gold-plated Statue of the David on his front lawn because his hedge fund posted some fantastic returns last year—almost too fantastic, you should check it out. We’ll just offer you some interesting facticles on the phenomenon’s poster child, Eugene Grin (and his younger brother, David):

+Originally from Ukraine, Eugene Grin became a vacuum cleaner salesman when he landed in the U.S. in 1979. Then he worked as a broker of penny stocks, among other investments, at F.N. Wolf & Co., the boiler room shut down by regulators in 1994. At Wolf one of Grin's clients was Gilbert Bornstein, a 54-year-old unemployed man who invested $32,000 with Grin after being convinced he could safely double his money through penny stocks. Bornstein was soon stuck with $27,000 in losses. Nine years later a New York State judge determined that Grin owed Bornstein $40,000. Grin has yet to pay that bill, and the judgment remains outstanding. "He was superwealthy," Grin shrugged [while talking to Forbes], by way of an excuse. "There was money in the family."

Jack Shafer is mad—fumed, you might even say. Obviously, his fury has to do with the Maria B. and Todd T. situation, but only tangentially. Jack’s a big boy—he doesn’t care if two extremely loaded, good looking individuals want to join the Mile High Club (‘what took them so long?’ is what he probably wanted to ask), but what he cannot take is the Puritans over at the Wall Street Journal and their insistence on not saying what everyone’s thinking: Todd Thomson nailed Maria Bartiromo (or vice versa, if you’re more comfortable with a less masculine-driven sort of discourse and you think Maria was on top).

Highlighting several examples of the paper’s irresponsible cockteasing style of journalism, Shafer reviews its Citi-Gate coverage with a red pen and finds the following: the slimmed-down rag makes mention of “a friendship that includes a trans-Pacific flight alone in a corporate jet, an apparently significant sighting in an expensive restaurant, and a dressing down in which a corporate executive is told to reduce his contact with his friend of the opposite sex” but fails to connect any of the dots that it itself has laid out! Shafer is so mad about this he comes up with a brilliant yet horrifying euphemism for sex and proceeds to actually make us read it: “[listing all of the above mentioned incidents] all but draws the donut and tosses the hot dog through it.” (Is he taking liberties with his knowledge of Ms. Bartiromo’s more delicate parts or does Shafer speak from prior experience? And if so, are we talking chocolate with sprinkles or jelly? When one is taking another party to task for a lack of driving something home, one should shy away from doing the exact same thing, Jackie-boy).

In cases like these, there’s usually someone or a bunch of someone’s to blame and today is no example. Though our litigious younger brother might quarrel, Shafer’s line of reasoning for the absence of the phrase “they did it” seems pretty airtight to us:

Having dumped the compost, planted the seed, and fertilized and watered the earth, the Journal leaves it to nobody's imagination what species the flowering Thomson-Bartiromo friendship, relationship, and contact is without actually coming out and writing anything that 1) they can't prove and 2) invites a libel suit. This is the sort of copy a clever lawyer directs reporters to write when they "know" something but can't prove it. Leave it to the reader to assemble the meaning of the facts in their minds, the wise libel attorney tells his clients.

Stupid lawyers; always with their ‘libel’ and their ‘let’s not get sued’ and their ‘Ally McBeal was not an accurate representation of us.’ They really just need to get laid.

Bartiromo Innuendo [Slate]

Some of you have been wondering why we are posting at the speed of Windows Vista on a 2 year old computer this week. The answer – server and power issues. This will continue to sound conventional until we think of some ridiculously awesome reason like an eagle carrying a severed deer head attacked our servers. By the time I finish typing this, there will be metal bands fighting for that logo.

Let the eagle soar — but without the deer head – [MSNBC]

Speaking of Microsoft and how it is often maligned for blatant copying slight tweaking of competitor’s products, notice how MSNBC copied CNN.com’s “Offbeat” category and called it “Peculiarity.” That is uncoachable. Or Zune-tastic.

Also – This is how people come out of the closet in Ohio. Oh, what peculiarity!

So I’m sitting here with some posts ready to go, but unable to get them on the (temporarily unavailable) site, after combing the morning news. My mind starts to wander. Then the loneliness...the anomic solitude of the beached blogger. One click leads to another then all of a sudden I’m watching full episodes of “What About Brian” on the internet. “WHAT ABOUT BRIAN.” FULL EPISODES! Do you realize how murky the depths of one’s soul must become for procrastination to sink this low?

Update – the servers are back, after Elizabeth decapitated the eagle…by biting its head off. Elizabeth Spiers with a severed eagle head in her mouth with a severed deer head in its mouth. By the time I finish typing this, the metal bands previously fighting for the eagle/dear head logo will be fighting for this one. You also would think "death eagle" would lead to some freaking awesome images on Google image search, but you would be wrong, so I had to settle on the posted pic.

Bolstered by the success of T.M.X. Elmo last holiday season, Mattel plans to launch T.M.X. Cookie Monster and T.M.X. Ernie by next fall. The T.M.X. line of “tickle-me” toys is slightly smaller and much more technologically advanced than its predecessors. The new dolls will be far sluttier more affirming than Elmo, able to get off after a mere two tickles, opposed to Elmo’s three. Once tickled sufficiently, Cookie Monster giggles, laughs and rolls. Ernie, however, screams out “Oh Bert!” repeatedly, bobs up and down like a rubber duckie, starts squeaking and then collapses in a heap until you pour cold water on him.

Mattel released earnings yesterday, reporting an 8% and 11% rise in domestic and international gross sales respectively, with core brands such as Barbie showing growth for the first time in several years. Mattel (NYSE: MAT) was down almost a half a percent in after hours trading on Monday.

Following T.M.X. Elmo, here come his friends – [CNNMoney]
Mattel Q4 2006 Press Release

Maria Bartiromo—Todd Thomson’s jet setting gal-pal—is in talks with CNBC about having her own branded TV show in the vein of Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers, the Post reports today. She’s also had her nickname—‘Money Honey’—trademarked for “stuffed animals, motion picture films, coin-counting machines, coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, interactive games, beer glasses, headbands and more,” which we can only assume is code for thongs and airline peanuts. Though sources caution that the moniker may have nothing to do with the show, the suggestion that it might, in conjunction with the ‘$Honey’ teddy bears you’ll soon be able to buy, has been enough to get several people quite riled up, including talent agent Michael Glantz (whose claim to fame is that he manages Wolf Blitzer which, if you think about it, is pretty awesome). “If she’s going to be out there hawking T-shirts and other things bearing this name, that is new…for somebody in a news environment,” Glantz told the Post [Ed.: what are your thoughts on the Jim Cramer bobble head doll?] “In the sports arena it’s different. People can exploit their own personality," Glantz added. "But how's she ever going to cover anything to do with marketing, assuming she's doing the same thing?" Naturally, we don’t have an answer. But we do have a question—how great would it be to see MB sign off every night by pushing her product du jour (The $Honey eau de toilette, The $Honey pregnancy test, The $Honey set of steak knives) and nailing that evening’s guest? Pretty, pretty, pretty great.

MARIA ANGLES FOR Q&A SHOW [NYP]

Now that Americans have demonstrated an ability not to giggle uncontrollably during ads discussing 4 hour long erections and have finally forged the conceptual bridge between genital herpes and extreme kayaking, prostate drug Flomax is entering the fray with a spot during Super Bowl XLI. WPP Group’s Grey produced the spot, which features a bunch of dudes in spandex (bicycle racers) talking about “guys having more fun and spending less time in the men’s room.” The ad is going to air in the 4th quarter of the game, when most people with prostate problems are trying to pass any liquid waste that can be extracted from pizza, nachos, cheese-dip and beer. If the game goes into overtime, Flomax has another ad set to launch featuring Peyton Manning's prostate. Super Bowl ads cost $2.6mm for 30 seconds this year, and the program is expected to air in approximately 90 million households.

There may be some collusion among the big drug manufacturers, according to an old Cialis press release about the drug’s Super Bowl advertisements:

Cialis is not for everyone. If you take nitrates, often used for chest pain (also known as angina), or alpha-blockers (other than Flomax(2) 0.4 mg once daily), prescribed for prostate problems or high blood pressure, do not take Cialis

Clearly the Flomax people have clamped down on Eli Lilly like an enlarged prostate. Why else would the makers of Cialis mention only Flomax as an OK thing to chomp on after securing a means to a rock hard love scepter? The press release could have said, “other than Flomax or Hormel Brand Cured Ham (also high in nitrates). When you want to pork, or just pork in general, there’s nothing better than Cialis and delicious Hormel Ham.”

Ad Notes – [WSJ, Paper Edition 1.29.07]

If you noticed anyone last week not complaining about the cold, it was probably someone who was frequenting the Australian Wine Festival New York, part of Australia Week 2007. Australia is currently the 6th largest wine producer in the world, and exports over half a billion liters annually. At its current growth, the Australian wine industry expects to produce 10% of the world’s wine in 10 years. Moving away from its once typical “extremely fruity,” “high-alcohol” wines, Australian wine exporters are staying competitive by concentrating on middle tier, affordable wine selections, even shirking conventions like corked bottles for screw-on caps. One expert contends that the explosive growth of wine consumption and export in Australia is cutting into beer consumption, which may explain why the Australians have slipped in the world rugby rankings the last couple of years, with a relatively unmotivated squad not looking forward to wine and cheese post-game drink ups.

Australia Pumps Up, Seeking 10 Percent of World Wine Market – [Bloomberg]

And the winner at British Airways is....Willy Walsh (Flight International)
After weeks of tension, the strike threat at Biritsh Airways has been defused, and the company's CEO deserves the credit. The coup de grace came when the CEO publicly pointed out that the average unionized BA worker took 22 days of sick leave per year, far more than the average British worker. This not only made them look weak and sickly, it helped them lose face in the court of public opinion. And of course it made everyone question why they were thinking about striking.

Rumors Fly About Bristol, Lifting Stock (NYT)
It's not clear, exactly, where this one stands, but there's a lot of speculation about a possible merger between Bristol-Myers and Sanofi. While there are plenty of rumors flying around, the companies have offered nothing but an official denial, which they'd have to issue whether they were talking or not, so take that with a grain of salt. Given the intensity of the rumors, and yesterday's trading, a deal will probably happen soon, if indeed one is being talked about at all.

Stock Frenzy In China Stokes Official Concern (WSJ)
Several months ago, then Treasury Secretary Snow went to China and told anyone who would listen that the Chinese people had to embrace the concept of household debt. Take out a few credit cards, he exclaimed, and while you're at it, buy a few American-made goods, just to help balance out the trade deficit. Well, the Chinese seem to be getting the whole debt thing, but they're not buying American Apparel t-shirts. Instead they're snapping up stock in the Chinese market, helping to fuel a rally, but also helping to make the whole thing look like a house of cards that will come tumbling down at the first mention of wind. So they're taking out second mortgages, setting up online trading accounts and maxing out the AmEx to play their hand at what looks to be a hot deck. Thanks a lot John Snow!

JetBlue Posts $17 Million Profit on Passenger Gain (Bloomberg)
About a year or so ago, jetBlue, once the highflying wunderkind of the airline industry started having some problems, and it warned that it's rapid growth ambitions were hurting its profitability. This was exactly at the same time most other domestic airlines started pulling their noses up and returning to profitability. Now, after slowing its expansion and intake of new jets, the company is seeing good times again. Today it reported profits that were just a hair shy of analyst estimates, with sales growth at an impressive 42%.

$$$ Carnival of the Capitalists [Long or Short Capital]

$$$Yes, I am a successful investment banker with a 7=figure bonus to prove it. Now I need some help spending some of it. If interested, please reply with 2 clear photos (1 of whole body, 1 closeup of face) and tell me your age, height, weight, occupation and why I should pick you. [Craigslist]

$$$Harvard Econ Recruiting Video and Outtakes. [Banker's Ball]

As previously noted this morning, private equity will be the hot chick at the party in ’07. But we didn’t realize that she’d be so hot that Stevie-boy Cohen would dip his fingers in her womanaly charms. But we’ve been not-clairvoyant before so, uh, this is nothing new (though upsetting all the while). As The Street’s Matthew Goldstein reports:

In a somewhat surprising move, Cohen's $12 billion SAC Capital Partners behemoth is stepping up to the plate to help finance a $3.1 billion management-led buyout of Laureate Education. The Connecticut-based hedge fund is part of a group of investors taking the higher education company private in a deal led by Laureate CEO Douglas Becker, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Citigroup's private equity arm.

Shift for SAC's Cohen [thestreet.com]

Tonight at midnight, Microsoft will roll out the hotly anticipated version of its old-timey Windows operating system, the majestically-named Vista, which will make the PC “the place where it all comes together for multimedia applications such as photos, music and videos.” The Big V—which Microsoft poured $6 billion in to develop—is the first update of Windows since 2001, when XP was released. To coincide with big day (night, whatever), Gates and wife Melinda will jump out of an airplane naked. Joking about that last part but thanks for the indulgence. Anywho, what’s actually going to happen approximately 7 hours prior to the release will be Gates’s appearance on The Daily Show (or, 1 hour prior, wink, wink, if we’re going to play that game wherein we pretend we don’t know how previously taped shows work). Usually this would be the time for us to wax poetic on our love for the vertically challenged but oh so irresistible and Jewish-parent friendly host of the show, but tonight is not about Jon Stewart. No, tonight represents So. Much. More. We’re pretty sure you get what we’re hinting at, but for the people in the cheap seats, we’ll spell it out: tonight, PC (Gates) will come face to face with…PC. (Meaning TDS resident expert and “PC,” John Hodgman). Obviously this is HUGE, the consequences of which could be disastrous. But we’re thinking less along the lines of the destruction of the galaxy and more like—is this (the rolling out of Vista/the MONUMENTAL meeting of PC and PC) just a big diversion that Gates created to cover up his own (backdating?) scandal, a la Mr. Jobs’s “quick, everyone look at this awesome cell phone that let’s you watch The Office whenever you want and don’t pay attention to my tinkering of stock options, etc, etc”? We’ll soon find out.

On a less cataclysmic note, in an interview for CNN’s American Morning , Gates was visibly ticked off at the suggestion that the Vista has similarities to OS X, as demonstrated in his repetition of the word “No”: “No, no, no. There are whole areas where we've innovated," Gates said during the interview. Also, and this is not meant to get Billy-boy any more riled up than he already is, but there are some experts out there—obviously morons who have no idea what they’re talking about—that say consumers needn’t upgrade from XP if they’re not buying a new computer in the next several years. Shooting of the messenger not necessary.

Bill Gates touts Vista [CNN Money]
TDS schedule of guests [Comedy Central]

...every corporate executive and his mother (and her mother) taking the company jet on unauthorizedish jaunts? Todd Thomson, sure, he needed some privacy a few thousand feet above ground to seduce the $Honey, that we get. But what about everyone else? Like, for instance, Applebee's former CEO Lloyd Hill? In a letter to the chairman of Applebee’s International’s (APPB) compensation committee, CEO Douglas Conant, from Richard C. Breeden (obtained by footnoted.org), DC is informed of the error of his "free rides for everyone" ways:

On 29 occasions from April 2006 through January 2007, Applebees’s corporate aircraft flew into and out of Galveston, Texas, where former CEO Lloyd Hill happens to own a beach house. The nearest Applebees’s restaurant is more than 40 miles away. Though Mr. Hill ceased to be CEO in September 2006, company planes continue the Galveston shuttle."

We do not believe that shareholder interests are served by turning corporate aircraft into flying limousines for senior executives’ personal vacations. Just as importantly, this practice is inconsistent with the wholesome “neighborhood values” that Applebee’s claims to embody as a company. I am quite certain that most Applebee’s customers would be shocked to find out that a portion of the cost of their meal goes to fly the former CEO back and forth to his beach house aboard a corporate plane.

Allowing someone to fly the company plane to his beach house when he doesn’t even work for the company anymore is one thing, but bucking Applebee’s “wholesome neighborhood values”? That a portion of the $9.99 that Bob Loblaw is shelling out for his Fiesta Lime Chicken™ is paying for? That is just wrong, my friend. This is why Applebee’s is on the decline.

(NB: footnoted asks in a P.S.: “Just imagine if some other folks started digging into corporate flight logs — now that would make for some interesting proxy reading. In fact, this sounds like a great wiki-project for footnoted.org readers. Anyone interested in helping to pull this together?” Obviously we’re huge fans of FN and read it daily but here’s a question—what in god’s name do you think the point of this is? Our own personal amusement?)

A day at the beach…[footnoted.org]

To the dismay of many executives and lobbyists, you will no longer be able to freebase with Zell Miller or join the mile-high club with Nancy Pelosi in your corporate jet. According to new measures in both chambers of Congress, you will instead have to shroom with Zell using toothpicks and bang Pelosi in one of Paul Allen’s non-winged vehicles, which ironically form a Voltron-esque galactic crime fighting entity that is considered to be winged.

The Congressional meal restrictions apply to any company that employs registered lobbyists, meaning a large number of execs will be sticking to hors d’oeuvres when entertaining politicians. While some of the lubricant of traditional glad-handing may have been stripped from the calloused hands of many companies that rely more heavily on a distinct political climate for profitability, most of these new restrictions do not apply to fund-raising activity, where most glad-handing climaxes are achieved anyway.

However, one grave consequence of the new measures:

Because the rules ban gift-giving by lobbying groups, dozens of amateur softball teams on Capitol Hill will no longer be allowed to accept balls, bats and league fees from corporations and lobbying organizations. The Nuclear Energy Institute's sponsorship of the team of Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who until recently headed the Energy and Commerce Committee, could be in trouble.

Not only does this threaten Barton’s Isotopes squad (or whatever it is called), but also it means that your corporate leagues will now be flooded with earnest K Streeters. If you thought that Lehman VP was obnoxious arguing the hotly disputed kickball strike zone, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

No Free Lunch: New Ethics Rules Vex Capitol Hill – [WSJ]

The former head of global financial institutions equity research at Merrill Lynch, Judah Kraushaar, has launched Roaring Brook Capital, a fund with an “emphasis on rigorous research and value/growth at reasonable price.” Roaring Brook charges fees of 1.5% for management and 20% for performance. The minimum investment requirement is $1 million. And scene.

Former Merrill Lynch Executive Launches Hedge Fund Shop [FINalternatives]

Citigroup is in trouble, but not for the reason you might think, according to Bloomberg. Though CEO Charles Prince has been doing his very best to cut expenses in order to come up neck and neck with the profit gains of his competitors, he may be “doomed to fail.” But, according to reporter David Pauly, neither Prince’s former wood burning fireplace-loving CFO nor the $Honey are to blame. Apparently, it’s Citigroup’s fault.

Though Pauly acknowledges the company as a “behemoth of commercial banking, stockbrokerage, investment banking, sub-prime lending and hedge funds,” Citi’s huge girth may just be the problem.

Prince is confronting the law of large numbers: The bigger a company gets, the harder it is to grow as fast as it did when it was smaller.

Over the last five years, “Citi” has produced average total returns of only 6.9 percent, paltry in comparison to the 9.5 average return of the 88 stocks in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Financials Index.
Though Pauly, apparently a better person than us, refuses to even suggest it, perhaps the departure of the less than spend thrifty Thomson and his oft-fabled fish tank will help things along. Do you have any idea how much fish food will set you back these days? You must not, or you'd be just as riled up as we are. They’re thieves, those people over at PetCo, thieves!

Professor Walter Benn Michaels argues in his book, The Trouble with Diversity, that “diversity” has been linguistically hijacked as a way to describe economic inequality. He views this as a problem because it affirms the notion of poverty as primarily a choice and that reducing the number of poor people then becomes a “reduction in economic diversity,” and “disrespectful to the agency of the poor,” which, when you put it that way, sounds like a pretty lousy thing. Michaels is a batty English professor, so while it is likely that he’s deriving most of his argument from some post-structuralist analysis of Sister Carrie or something equally irrelevant, he does offer a compelling notion that diversity jargon has obfuscated real discussion regarding the increasing wealth gap and class partitions. The notion of, I don’t know, at least a few externalities affecting one’s position in an existing and entrenched class structure, is anathema to Murray’s argument in the Journal, in which poor people either have low IQs or are just really ardent ‘consumers’ of leisure.

Wit and Sharp Argument Skewer a Damaging Euphemism – [The New York Observer]

We think Ben Stein did but we’ve got water in our ears from this morning’s dip in the pool so it’s hard to say for sure. Anyway, for those who did inquire, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Co. have the answer: go private. Apparently that was the consensus in Switzerland this past week. According to the attendees of a symposium that included people who sound like bigwigs (Pagliuca of Bain Capital, Weinberg of Perella Weinberg, Rosen of Lazard) in Davos on Thursday, private equity will “account for 26 percent or more of the M&A market in five years,” on the heels of this past year’s 20% of M&A’s being represented by private equity. Why?

The ability to pay enormous pay-for-performance packages without an outcry from public shareholders.

According to one pseudonymously named “Buyout King”:

"If one of my C.E.O.’s made $100 million, I’d say that’s great because it means that we probably just made $2 billion.”

What is unacceptable for a public chief executive becomes a powerful incentive in the private sphere.

So there you have it: go private, and shut Ben Stein up.

(There are naysayers, of course, John Thain chiefly among them, who claims “all these ‘going privates’ will soon be ‘going public’ again.” But his word has been, shall we say, fishy, of late).

A Growing Aversion to Ticker Symbols [NYT]

Ben Stein had a nice little article on Sunday in which he recounts hearing a Jefferson Starship song on the radio, feels compelled to “put on [his] swim trucks” (a visual we could’ve dealt without but appreciated nonetheless), goes for a dip in his “superheated pool” and “looks up at the stars.” While splashing around in the water he starts to think about his life—his “wonderful” wife, his son who’s the “handsomest son on the planet,” his “glorious” homes, his “great, super” parents, his kick-ass game show, his starring roles in the Visine Clear Eyes commercials, those recurring spots on Charles in Charge, etc, etc. All of the gleaming (egomaniacal, probably exaggerated) superlatives, he credits to capitalism. It was because of capitalism that his parents, Eastern European Jews (represent!), could make money “as individuals according to contract,” not “according to the statues of [their] birth.” The senior Steins’ accumulation of wealth then set the ball in motion for junior Stein to go to law school, get rich, marry what sounds like a pretty hot wife, and afford the cost of an equally attractive sperm donor from which the “handsomest son on the planet” sprang forth, buy the huge house with the “superheated pool” and so on and so forth.

But the more laps he swims, the more Stein starts to get angry-- really angry (and not just because the water temperature has dipped to an uncivilized 72°). So angry that he starts to talk about “yeoman farmers” and “hammers” and “granite foundations” (though we’re pretty sure that can be chalked up to the drugs). Capitalism, Stein posits to the handful of people who recognize him outside of “Bueller, Bueller,” can only thrive in the presence of trust. When there’s no trust, there’s no capitalism, and when there’s no capitalism, there’s no “superheated pools” or hot wives or handsome sons or recurring spots on Charles in Charge. All there is are lukewarm pools and mildly attractive but nothing to write home about wives and so-so looking sons and blink-and-you-miss-it bits on, we don’t know, Moesha. And you know who’s to blame for this lack of trust? Stein does:

When I see what the top dogs at all too many corporations are now doing to that trust, I feel queasy. Outrageous—yes, obscene—pay.

You know who should also be held accountable? Washington. They’re all “crooks” there, too. No, if we don’t crack down on thieves like Jobs and, you know, liberals, and fast, you know what’s going to happen? Stein’s going to lose money, he’s going to have to downsize to an aboveground pool; and in order to keep his wife in the lifestyle she’s become accustomed to, he’s going to actually have to take those walk-ons on Moesha.

Greedy backdating of stock options, which in my opinion is straight-up theft. Mangers buying assets from their trustors, the stockholders, at pennies on the dollar, then forestalling competing bids with lockups and insane break up fees.

You see? Already preparing for the worst.

(We’re not saying we agree or disagree with Stein’s anger over corporate greed, thievery, etc, etc—taking actual stances on issues always comes back to bite us in the ass. But maybe next time he should orate from a place other than his “superheated pool”—his gold plated double-wide shower, perhaps?—if he wants people to “feel [his] pain.” Otherwise, it just sounds like BS, BS. Not that there's anything wrong with that).

The Hard Rain That’s Falling on Capitalism [NYT]

Citigroup to buy Prudential's Egg for 575 mln sterling (Reuters)
Here's a blast from the past, from the days when banks felt the need to have unique and hip internet offerings that carried separate brands from the main division. Remember Wingspan? Well, Citigroup will buy out the assets of Egg, the internet banking branch of Prudential in the UK. Just in case you were wondering, it's still underperforming, and it's still unprofitable. Previous rumors of an Egg sale were denied, but you can insert your own pun about turning a rotten Egg into an omelette here ____.

Greene King toasts sales despite pub smoke ban (Scotsman.com)
Proponents of smoking bans in the US are gaining more ammunition, as UK pub chains continue to report good results despite the ban there. One chain, Greene King, claims to have seen a major boost, particularly in its locations that sell food, as well as those that have outdoor areas. Of course, as we're sure many ban advocates would agree with, profitability does not make right. Also, it's interesting to note the vertical integration of the UK alcohol industry. Greene King, in addition to owning a pub chain, also owns a line of beer. Sure, here you have your odd microbrewery with a bar attached, but nothing approaching a national brands, with its own line of pubs.

Tech Barons Take on New Project: Energy Policy (NYT)
We read somewhere that in Davos, at panel on the future of energy, it was pretty much all tech guys, like the Google guys waxing poetically about their vision. They were there along with venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who is simultaneously investing gobs of money into ethanol while lobbying the government for ethanol subsidies. There's a few ways to think about this trend. For one thing, gas prices are expensive, so energy policy appears to be "messed up", if only by inference. Who are the big stars today that seem to know everything about everything? The Google guys, along with some Silicon Valley VCs. Then again, perhaps were entering a unification phase among technology, whereby formerly disparate disciplines like computing, energy and medicine are all merging, as people realize that they share a common substrate, that it all comes down to 1s and 0s, if you dig deep enough. Or maybe these guys just have a lot of money, and as rich people have always done throughout the history of time, they feel they have an important voice to lend to the issues.

Summers on the biology century (Information Processing)
While the tech crowd is focused on energy policy, Larry Summers apparently thinks the big work to be done is in medicine and the life sciences. Yeah, we didn't see that coming earlier. Sure, seems like we're on the cusp of some interesting stuff, but Summers' proposal that the government invest a lot more in this area seems to come out of nowhere. More importantly, it's not clear that things aren't working. Yes, plenty of layoffs at Pfizer, but, frankly, we'd be worried about any industry where a century-old behemoth weren't going through some major pains at this point.

$$$ Drinking Game for CFA Exam Prep Classes [Long or Short Capital]

$$$Hopelessly Romantic Venture Capitalist lookin' for a good time. [Craigslist]

$$$Long Suns, Short Cuban [WallStrip]

Earlier this week, you’ll recall, if you read this site, we regurgitated the news that Bloomberg and the Schumster had issued a report heralding the death of Wall Street. “60,000 jobs” and “$25 billion” and the need for “looser European-style regulations” and “F Sarbanes-Oxley” was the gist of it (we think—we kind of just glossed over it). Today the New York Times and FT both run “everybody calm down, it’s not going to be that bad” pieces, suggesting that, while New York won’t be the God of All Things Financial anymore, it’s not going to hell in the hand basket Mikey and Chuck would have us believe.

At NYT, Jenny Anderson writes:

Like London’s, all markets can always be improved. And the United States markets are in need of improving. There is near-unanimous agreement that Section 404 has had dire unintended consequences. Global investment banks could lower the high I.P.O. fees they charge in the United States. The federal government could fix immigration issues so that people can flow more easily into and out of New York.
But New York will also have to accept that it will be a leader among global financial centers rather than the leader.

At FT, Richard Beales comments:

Talk of New York's demise as a financial centre is absurdly premature…

We’re not here to make trouble (that’s a lie) and Anderson and Beales generally sound like they know what’s up, but if New York isn’t in trouble then why did Eliot Spitzer essentially read the report, get up, and jump ship? The guy who, up until a few days ago, could be counted on to nail Wall Street's inhabitants for J-walking and public urination (we actually agree with the vigor of his prosecution on the latter). Doesn’t his sudden and radical departure mean we really are up to our necks in feces? It’s got to. It’s like if John Carney were to—and this is just a for instance—endlessly go on about the wonders of Jameson then suddenly stopped drinking…

From: John Carney

To: us, among others, who have a vested interest in his drinking habits

[yada, yada, yada]

-C-bombs

PPS: If you really want to know more about what it's like to be laid-up with lots of broken bones and pain, well it's no big deal. Really. But there's no loot, there's no booze and it's no fun. But the Tossers said it better than I can. See for yourself below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOVgNIp0EeU”

On second thought, maybe Anderson and Beale are right that Wall Street’s not dead—it’s just got a few broken bones.

About Those Fears of Wall Street’s Decline... [NYT]
On Wall Street: New York's thicket of complicated rules [FT]

In perhaps the most shocking story ever broken, James Brown’s assets were mismanaged, according to his six children. The hardest working man in show business died on Christmas last year and did a brief set at his funeral before interment. Brown’s six adult children are trying to oust the current managers of the Godfather of Soul’s trust, and a court hearing is scheduled for February 1.

The primary value depreciation of Brown’s assets started when Brown started asking his band for financial advice. Questions like, “Can I get a 15% 3-year IRR by flipping this swampy Florida real estate?” and “Can I store this $5mm diamond encrusted cape in a jar of mayonnaise?” were met in the same resonant affirmative as “Can I get up and do my thang?”

James Brown's children: Assets mismanaged – [CNN]

A lot of people have been saying a lot of stuff today about the whole Maria B./Todd T. situation. At Blogging Stocks, Jonathan Berr has called for Bartiromo’s head. At MarketWatch, Jon Friedman has his panties in a bunch over the fact that CNBC hasn’t been covering the story itself. Over at gary-weiss.com, the G-man wants to know what everyone’s getting so upset about; he thinks the real problem is that the media’s too into this whole story (Gar: do you honestly think people are capable of resisting anything involving fish tanks and wood-burning fireplaces?). DealBook weighs in with this tidbit of rocket science: “Some of the interest may be due to the beauteous figure that Ms. Bartiromo, dubbed the “Money Honey” when she became the first TV reporter allowed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, cuts." And the WSJ offers pretty much a remix of its story from Tuesday, this time adding one of their trademark police sketches of MB, and somehow failing to give the $Honey the justice she deserves, artistically speaking. We’d been standing at the proverbial drawing board all morning trying to find our original take on the story (who cares if she’s a media-whore; what we want to know is, is she a whore-whore was deemed "too catty"), when we stumbled upon the Financial Times’ comment on the brouhaha of the week. Consider it all that needs to be said.

The mind blowing website Yahoo! Personal Finance has not updated its “Top 5 Questions & Answers,” since its launch last week (most likely due to DealBreaker’s conclusive answers to those questions), but the site is still rife with new and original content designed to help your sub-average higher order primate function. The highlight of Yahoo!’s sodomizingly fresh content-a-palooza is EXPERT Jim Citrin’s six tips on how to leave a perfect voicemail. Citrin, author of 4 non-Harlequin books and senior director of executive search firm Spencer Stuart, has been leaving voicemails since his third trimester (he demanded baby formula comps in his crib by delivery ASAP from some analysts via ultrasound) and is a higher order primate (by a 2/3rds majority panel of Bonobos). Like many of you, I think Citrin's advice is great, but just need a real world example to keep from lighting myself on fire.

To act as a supplment to Citrin, below are his tips, applied to a request for an Asian Butterfly Escort.

1. Be clear about the goal of your message:
You are drunk. Zhang Ziyi is hot. An Asian girl touched your leg once. In your current state just about anyone will resemble either of them. Make a lame joke about how you’d like to give a geisha some pretty hot memoirs. Realizing they won’t get it and pre-empting any confusion, apologize for the joke. The goal of step #1 will be lost.

2. Be authoritative and upbeat in your tone:
Claim that you have a definite idea of where you want the encounter to go, but are open to a variety of opposing views and alternatives, much like the Hundred Flowers Campaign, only with deflowering.

3. Find a bridge to the person you’re calling:
Preferably one over the River Kwai. You love Burmese chicks and you’re a naughty prison camp refugee.

4. Be brief:
Affirm that this will not be a problem. It’s been a while.

5. Be specific in your request:
Not even sure if “Asians” have wheelbarrows, you may have to refine the specificity of your request. You will instead have to say you would like to participate in “the rickshaw.”

6. Leave your contact information slowly and clearly:
Leave your VP’s address and home phone number in a clear, distinct tone, altering your voice only a few octaves so you sound like a pre-op tranny signing a Barry White song. Your VP will get a call to confirm. This will be worth it, believe me.

The Art of the Perfect Voicemail – [Yahoo! Personal Finance]

A new IRS crackdown on hedge funds headquartered in the Virgin Islands requires more complete disclosure from people and funds claiming residency in the territory. For instance, you might actually have to live in the Virgin Islands now to claim residency there. The I.R.S. suspects ridiculous fraud (what else is new?) by many funds and individuals, who were using "residency" in the territory to shirk 90% of their taxes. 23 of the 49 hedge funds that were located in the Virgin Islands have left (or “left”) in the last 2 years. An anonymous hedge fund manager was reportedly whistling the following:

Aruba, Jamaica, ooooh I will evade ya In Bermuda, Bahama, numbers stay pro forma Key Largo, Montego Bay-be such loose tax code

Ooooh I want to take you down to Kokomo
We’ll relocate fast and then our tax will go
The I.R.S. will never know
Way down in Kokomo

Paradise Lost: Hedge Funds Flee from Island Tax Haven – [DealBook]

On first glance, the most remarkable aspect of Bush's State of the Union address last Tuesday night was that he managed to get through the whole thing with nary a stutter or bout of nervous giggling. Perhaps his unusual state of ease (emotionally and with the English language) was due to a decision on his part to accept his current situation and phone the whole thing in. Whatever you want to call it, it was probably one of the most successful public speaking appearances that Bushie-boy has made to date.

Also remarkable? That the entire speech seemed to have been written by the good people of General Electric. In fact, writer Tim Carney* notes that seven out of the nine pillars of GE's new feel-good environmental and energy initiative bearing the impossibly corny name of "Ecomagination" found their way into the energy policies Bush called on Congress to foster (read: "subsidize"). Mr. President started by asking for congressional action promoting "even greater use of clean-coal technology," solar, wind and nuclear power. Similarly, GE, Carney writes,

…has launched an ambitious partnership to build coal gasification power plants. Such plants are much more expensive (at least 20 percent according to industry experts) to operate than standard coal power plants, and become profitable only with subsidies or other government favors. Specifically, GE has figured out how to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from these plants, and now is lobbying on Capitol Hill for mandatory limits on CO2 emissions — thus driving demand for their costly coal plants.

GE Bush and GE also see eye to eye on the development of solar power and biofuels; but these technologies, Carney notes, are only profitable when they have the government assistance that, quite conveniently, the State of the Union asked for on Tuesday.

The Dubya was probably ready to stop there but GE is a big company, and so he had to go on to call for "battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles," more "clean diesel" and biodiesel. What a happy coincidence that GE and General Motors just unveiled the Chevrolet Volt, a "next-generation hybrid vehicle that can go 40 miles each day on purely electric power," and can also—wait for it—run on biodiesel. And GE currently has a "clean diesel" train.

The cause-and-effect relationship between GE's investments, GE's lobbying and Washington's policies is probably a complex one. GE is also a famously flexible, diversified and dynamic business. If executives see that government policy is likely to move in a specific direction, GE can make sure it is there, waiting to profit from the policies when they arrive. This is probably a large part of what drives initiatives such as Ecomagination.

But with its behemoth lobbying budget, after GE has bet on a policy—such as subsidies for windmills—GE can make sure those policies are, in fact, put in place and kept in place.
If Tuesday night was any indication, the state of GE is strong.

We knew Bush would be a "CEO President" but we didn't think that meant "Jeff Immelt."

*who has the distinct pleasure of being one of our fearless leader's
three young brothers, the author of "The Big Ripoff: How Big Business
and Big Government steal your money," and holds no stock in General
Electric nor the Bush Administration.

What’s good for General Electric [Examiner.com]

Steve Jobs knows that a great way to take the spotlight off your possibly criminal participation in backdating is to release a sweet, sweet cell phone, that people can watch The Office on. Caremark Rx, unfortunately, did not have a little Steve Carell up its sleeve, and was forced to find alternative ways to distance itself from the stock scandal du jour.

A class action suit, by two pension funds from Pennsylvania and Louisiana, has been filed against Caremark’s higher ups charging that the top executives and the board “were willing to sell the company at no premium in part to get the broad indemnity that would cover any potential backdating transgressions.” And for their part, CVS happily handed over the indemnity because it “believe it was purchasing the company at such a bargain price,” $21.2 billion.

A spokeswoman for CVS told BusinessWeek the company does not think Caremark has a backdating problem. She also added that “CVS has "complete confidence in its management and board." Sounds like a tough pill to swallow. (Yeah, we said it).

Caremark Charged with Breach of Duty [BusinessWeek]

Carney is set to go under the knife early next week, which means he can stop wearing kilts and get off the morphine. I fear for the extremities of anyone wearing a kilt last night, because I have no idea if the pipes still work when the bags are frozen, but I digress.

Maybe surgery also means Carney will stop calling us and saying incoherent things like, “Every man dies, not every man really blogs,” or sending us financial links with the caveat, “Take this link, it will dull your pain.” Then we have to play along by responding, “No, it will numb my wits, and I must have them all to post items tomorrow. For if I’m senseless of if I wail, then commenters will break me,” or Carney won’t talk to us for the rest of the day.

Presumably all Carney has to do is kiss Elizabeth Spiers’ ring and he will receive “mercy,” and general anesthesia. Break a leg Good luck and here’s to a successful procedure and speedy recovery. Also, today is Carney's birthday, so aside from blowing out a very tiny candle on his next codeine, he has Ken Lay popping out of his birthday cake (shhh...it's a secret, and Kenny's been hiding in there for a while) to look forward to.

Bruce "Big Bucks" Wasserstein was awarded $18 million in restricted shares by Lazard Ltd. This represents an 80% increase from last year, when he got $10 million (plus a $4.2 million salary), thanks to a stock rise of 48% in 2006. The Wasserstein family currently owns $585 million in stock/stock rights; Wasserstein is the sixth-largest shareholder of public stock. Here's to bigger and better parties in '07.

LAZARD BIDS UP BRUCE [Bloomberg via NYPost]

Despite being built over what must be some sort of ancient Indian burial ground, Lloyd Blankfein and friends are hedging their bets that things will go more smoothly for them than Nick Maounis and co., as they consider leasing up to 200,000 square feet of office space left vacant by Amaranth, in Greenwich, Connecticut. While perhaps it would be more fitting for, say, J.P. Morgan to inhabit the space, any deal at all would be a boon to the Greenwich market, especially to the now-idle cabbies. In addition to the Amaranth meltdown, the Connecticut town has seen an additional 100,000 square feet of office space open up, with the departure of Royal Bank of Scotland, UST Inc. and Unilever A.G. Obviously, should Goldman actually set up shop up north, we'd be obligated to take another look-see. (Though perhaps in a town car as opposed to the Metro North. This is Goldman Sachs we're talking about, people).

Greenwich holds out hope for Goldman [FCBJ]

Microsoft Shares Rise After Profit Beats Estimates (Bloomberg)
So we've been saying all weak that this quarter's tech earning season is taking place in some sort of parallel universe where the cool kids get dumped on, while the nerds win homecoming crowns. Microsoft kept things going with a surprise performance, announcing yesterday evening that sales had exceeded expectations, all the while raising their forecast for the coming year on anticipation of good sales from Windows and Office. Analysts were certainly expecting some weakness in this last quarter, if only due to a pre-Vista lull in business. It wasn't so, and in other areas, such as the XBOX and its server business, sales easily exceeded expectations.

GM to delay earnings, restate past results (CNNMoney)
After Ford dropped its $13 billion bomb on the market, GM had to follow that up with some bad news of its own. The company insists that it will show a profit for its last quarter (more on that in a sec), but before it can tell us what that profit is, it has a bunch of accounting issues it needs to work out in the meantime, and that will prompt a delay in the earnings release. Ok, as for the GM profit, does anyone believe it? There's a big difference between "showing a profit" and "profiting", the latter being much more difficult -- difficult to the point where we're not sure that GM is capable of it, particularly since there doesn't appear to be much change at the company. The only change, it seems, is that its rival Ford has found itself in a much worse position, which only makes GM look good by comparison.

How Borrowed Shares Swing Company Votes (WSJ)
The Journal tips us off today on what's sure to be one of the next big scandals "empty voting", the practice of borrowing shares in a company just for the purpose of swinging the vote on issues that shareholders can vote in. The claim is that hedge funds are doing this, often, for the purpose hurting the company's stock price, so, voting opposite to the real interests of shareholders. The article cites on instance of a fund that blocked a merger that had been thought to be a done deal, because apparently the fund had an interest in pushing the company's stock price down. We could debate this for a long time, but suffice to say it's just the kind of issue that's bound to get regulators really foaming at the mouth, since it sounds like "buying" democracy, or something like that.

Lay and Others Dropped from Enron Suit (Dealbook)
Good news for Ken Lay, assuming he's still alive. His name is been dropped from a class action lawsuit brought by former Enron investors. Yes, there's still a lawsuit going forward. We're going to be hearing about this issue until 2020, at least. As for Lay, maybe this means it's safe to come out of hiding now.

$$$Tuxedo Time [Banker's Ball]

$$$Anyone up for “mentoring” a beautiful young girl who has no trouble getting hit on by attractive guys? It’d basically entail “sharing your knowledge/wisdom/experience and advice” who, in turn, promises to be “extremely appreciative.” No? Okay. [Craigslist]

$$$Déjà vu! '90s day-trading mania is back! [MarketWatch]

$$$Climate Change and Disease [Infectious Greed]

$$$Lindsay basks in her new-found BusinessWeek fame. [WallStrip]

Despite its $1.65bn acquisition of YouTube last November, Google is not winding down its Google Video site. YouTube will still hold video content, but Google Video will be redesigned to streamline internet video searching and index online videos. YouTube videos will show up in the Google Video search index, for instance. According to Google’s blog, YouTube “will remain an independent subsidiary of Google, and will continue to operate separately.” Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is down over 2.5% in today’s trading.

A look ahead at Google Video and YouTube – [Google Blog]

Charles Schwab announced today that its Chief Financial Officer, Christopher Dodds, will be retiring, effective May 18. Dodds, who’s been with the company since 1986 (and CFO since ’99), will be succeeded by Senior VP and Treasurer Joseph Martinetto. Sandler O’Neill analyst Richard Repetto commented today that “we believe Mr. Dodds had been a candidate to succeed Chuck Schwab…as CEO.” Dodds—known to friends as never being able to resist a trend (skinny jeans, black nail polish, cutting, etc)—today joins a long line of CFOs who hate their jobs.

Charles Schwab CFO to retire soon [Fortune]

Next month’s Lunar New Year kicks off the year of the pig in the Chinese Zodiac. Many companies, including Nestle and Coca-Cola, plan to run pig-laden ads to commemorate the celebration, and Disney is launching a major marketing push into China focused on the character Piglet. Stimying the pig-planned fervor, China Central Television (CCTV) is pulling all initial ads with porcine imagery to avoid offending China’s estimated 20 million Muslims, comprising less than 2% of the population.

Unlike the rest of the Chinese citizenry, a few Chinese Muslims own fireworks, and several others posses hand held sparklers and assorted Roman Candles. The Chinese government is especially on edge, not wanting a repeat of 1993 pig year debacle in which some Chinese newspapers published a story in which a pig saves the life of Muhammad (true story, both in China and with Muhammad, we think) and several Muslims dressed up in a dragon costume and paraded around the town square.

Coca-Cola’s image in China could take a hit if it has to return to its Phil, the Fearsome Yet Honorable Cock ads it aired in 2005, the year of the cock.

Pigs Get the Ax In China TV Ads, In Nod to Muslims – [WSJ]

It’d been a while since we’d heard from our crackpot team of Davos reconnaissance artists (otherwise known as legitimate reporters) so we took it upon ourselves to check in with the group. Here’s what’s shakin’ in Switzerland, thus far:

+ China is working overtime to try and make some friends. But now that it's telling the globe, and we quote, "We want to make friends with all countries. It's never too late to be our friends," is it coming off as a little too desperate? Perhaps China should start embracing our favorite platitude, and sure fire way to get into someone's pants make nice with the rest of the world: treat them like dirt and they'll stick to you like glue. [Forbes]

+Wall Street executives feel good about their risk-management practices; the Beard of Reasoning, does not. [Bloomberg]

+ KarstadtQuelle’s Thomas Middelhoff’s sperm has put in a lot of overtime to save Western Europe—what are you doing to help? [DealBook]

+ The roasted chicken served at the "Terrorism Lunch" was loaded with sesame seeds. [IHT]

+Climate change: thanks to the efforts of Larry David’s wife, mostly everyone (except for Bushie and co.) is up for stopping it. But no one wants to foot the bill. [CNN Money]

+ European Internal Market Commissioner Charles McCreevy defends the “constitutional right” to lose your own money. [WSJ]

+For someone who purportedly supports Germany, Claudia Schiffer is a less than “hands on” spokeswoman. Angelina definitely would’ve put out. [DealBook]

Yesterday we provided you with the most awful sound in the world, in hopes that you would use it like one of those high pitched dog and/or teenager detractors for your senior deal team members. If that failed, perhaps using the screams of this small demon child will induce some kind of banker death stampede.

Screams kill chickens – [BoingBoing]
Boy's screaming kills chickens – [Metro.co.uk]

All the unusually fit birds in the UK are circling banker blokes like vultures, waiting to pick away at London’s record $17.4bn bonus pool. Recent bonuses, as well as a string of favorable favourable UK divorce settlements and non-binding pre-nuptial agreements makes this an opportune time to bag (and then un-bag) a British banker. A recent case even takes the traditional ‘half of what you earned when we were together’ divorce claim and stretches it to include a claim on future earnings of ex-spouses, including those hefty year-end bonuses. This phenomenon has significantly boosted the attractiveness of people with shiny metallic shirts and ill-fitting trousers bopping around the mega-clubs of Leicester Square, which is basically the Murray Hill of England (with a little bit of the worst of the Meat Packing district thrown in), making the Chunnel the new PATH train and Calais the new Hoboken. Expect Jessica Wolcott to Heathrow in today's Planespotting.

Britain's Angry Wives Target Bonuses in Divorce Cases – [Bloomberg]

Carl Icahn, best known for waging a near-lethal war against the wastefulness of jet-ownership, cautions that a decline in the dollar will cause serious problems for U.S. stocks, going so far as to comment that a slide would “really blow up” the market’s four-year rally. The “activist investor” said in an interview yesterday that “a lot of these earnings are because these companies are able to buy a lot of goods abroad,” which is why a fall in the dollar would be less than desirable, Bloomberg reports. Icahn also commented that Federated Department Stores Inc. would be the target of a possible leveraged buyout. Of additional note is that Icahn complimented Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons on his work, stating “I’m happy with it.” Not exactly exuberance, but considering Icahn’s previous accolades for Parsons (and CEOs in general), including but not limited to RP being a “moron,” we’d say it’s a step in the right direction. Expect flowers and candy, early next week.

Icahn Warns U.S. Stock Gains Are Vulnerable to Slide in Dollar [Bloomberg]

The MarketWatch crew obtained the Q4 investor letter from Amaranth founder Nick Maounis, which details the firm’s post-apocalyptic strategy. The firm’s market exposure was cut from $2.25bn to $170mm in Q4 and the firm plans to retain 30 of its original 420 employees before the blow up. Over half of investor capital has been returned through redemptions and withdrawals, and the remaining capital is being held in illiquid assets, including a hefty $40mm litigation pool.

The DealBreaker Super Sleuths have also obtained Maounis’ letter:

My Dear Fellow Angry Men,

While confined here in this Greenwich, CT mansion, I came across your recent statements calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little cushioning for laying on it, and little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for the work of almost criminal value destruction. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good (rich) will and that your criticisms are sincerely (monetarily) set forth, I want to try to answer your statements (lawsuits) in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. Here is 55% to 60% of your money back, and a cookie.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
IOU,
Nick Maounis

Amaranth returns 55%-60% of remaining assets – [MarketWatch]

Charles Prince, last seen firing Todd Thomson for expense accounting his affair (we kid) and having a wood-burning fireplace installed in his office, is trolling for a new successor, reports the Financial Times. Possible heirs include Citigroup head of Latin American affairs, Manuel Medina-Mora, recently demoted Sallie Krawcheck, head of international consumer business, Ajay Banga, and the co-presidents corporate and investment banks, Michael Klein and Thomas Maheras. While FT noted that there is no urgency to the search, since Prince is expected to remain CEO for some time, there is perhaps some rush to take the spotlight off of the impending Citi-CNBC love child, who, it is expected to be announced on Mad Money this afternoon, Jim Cramer will be godfathering.

Citigroup CEO seen in hunt for successor [Fortune]

Nintendo hasn’t seen an eruption like this since Samus took off her spacesuit at the end of Metroid to reveal she was a chick. Bolstered by strong Wii and DS sales, Nintendo’s profit for the first three quarters of FY2007 grew 43% over last year. Nintendo has sold 3.2 million Wiis and expects to sell a total of 6 million by March. The traditional video game console manufacturer business model (put simply) is to lose money on console sales and make money on game sales. Since Nintendo opted out of the hardware pissing contest Sony and Microsoft are in, its console is significantly cheaper to make than its competitors. Nintendo’s console sales have not suffered the traditional losses incurred by the initial movement of next-generation consoles, and the Company is already at flat or break-even on Wii purchases. Sales of DS titles nearly doubled over the holiday season, spurred by innovative games like Brain Age, Nintendogs, Not Quite so Final Fantasy Bedazzled Chronicles and Super Mario Humpscapade.

Wii Helps Boost Nintendo Earnings – [WSJ]

…is that there are a whole lot of banks in this city, according to Observer scribe-cum-Master of Recon, Chris Shott. And get this: there’s about to be—and here’s where the story gets crazy-- one more. That’s right: New York, Lexington Avenue between 58th and 59th streets, in the Bloomberg Tower, to be exact, is about to add a record 56th notch to its Citigroup bank branch bedpost. But will it be welcomed with open arms or is this a case of no room at the inn for one of Charles Prince’s babies?

The company’s forthcoming…branch…will fill a 5,000-square-foot void along this Upper East Side commercial block, which is so desperately underserved by the cavernous Wachovia branch next-door. And the Bank of America two doors north.

Shott’s (duly noted) attitude smacks of the latter. And, apparently, according to a like-minded executive from Vornado Realty Trust, he’s not alone.

“Who’s excited about having three banks on one side of the street?” Her enthusiasm in confirming the deal was clearly lacking.

(Someone’s got a branch up her ass). But it doesn’t appear the branch bank craze will be slowing down anytime soon. Last April, Vernon Hill of Commerce Bank told the New York Times: “The building frenzy in branch banking is probably nearing its peak.” Less ominous words have clearly never been spoken. Further evidence of the phenomenon can be found in the sacrilegious conversion of the Second Avenue Deli into a Chase bank. We haven’t seen this much Jew-on-Jew violence since christ v Pharisees in the first century AD.

Bank Branches Disappearing? What Corner Do You Live On? [NYO]

Ford loses $12.7 billion in 2006 (Detroit Free Press)
Let it sink in, Ford lost $12.7 billion in 2006. Consider what that means. After all of the effort and production and sales of cars, the company ended up with significantly less than they started with. In theory, if the company had just frozen time, and just ceased operations and halted all payments they would have performed far better than they did. Granted, that's impossible, but even if they had just halted time in the final quarter of the year (again, rather difficult, we'll concede), the company would have saved itself nearly $6 billion. And it's probably not going to get any better any time soon. The company anticipates "further deterioration" in 2007, with many plants to close and many employees to be shown the curb. There is one bit of good news: the company has unveiled a new hydrogen-powered, rechargeable car.

EBay Shares Jump on European Growth, Profit Forecast (Bloomberg)
Tech earnings seasons is shaping up to be some sort of version of "Revenge of the Nerds" where all of the picked-on companies do well, while all of the popular companies take it on the chin. Apple got hit after its earnings, so did AMD. Yahoo and SUN rose after theirs, and now eBay has turned in positive numbers, meaning that perhaps CEO Meg Whitman gets a reprieve on termination, as has been anticipated in the media for some time. Much of the company's growth came from Europe, with particularly strong results in the UK.

Incomes and Inequality: What the Numbers Don’t Tell Us (NYT)
Tyler Cowen probably is risking his tenure as a NYT econ columnist with a piece questioning the conventional wisdom on income inequality. After all, the Times is nothing but conventional wisdom on many of these issues (on CEO pay, the paper might even be called "radically conventional"). Cowen makes a few simple points, such as the fact that growth in income inequality can be partly explained by the again population -- disparity is greater among the elderly, who have had more time to diverge. It's also greater among the educated, who tend to have a wider range of paths (e.g. some choose to be financial bloggers, while others actually choose to work in finance). Other apparent disparities can be chalked up to tax and accounting issues, which isn't nearly as sexy as saying the game is rigged.

Norway Deems iTunes As Illegal, Based on Non-Operability With Other Devices (PaidContent)
Ah, those high-minded Europeans with their crazy ideals about technology, freedom and interoperability. Looks like Apple's iTunes may have to pull out of the Norwegian market (too bad), because the government there doesn't like the fact that your tracks bought of iTunes won't play on a Zune. Granted, the fracturing of music does really blow -- then again, it shouldn't be illegal to blow.

$$$Now That’s a Presentation [Banker's Ball]

$$$Contextual Advertising: Do Not Push Your Investment Services Like This [Long or Short Capital]

$$$NJB 4 U [Craigslist]

If you’re like us, you’ve been waiting, dying for more news about Pocket Change NYC/NYM’s forthcoming event “honoring the age old union of wealthy men and hot girls.” Today, your and our prayers were answered. Got a little update with all of the “recently accepted applicants” and, fuck us if we’re wrong, but we think the best parts are the “assessments” next to each female. For instance, “Gilda Oliveira: Body is a little too wet, but obvious she's hot.” It’s like they can READ OUR MINDS.

From: Pocket Change

Sent: Wed 1/24/2007 3:05 PM

To: DealBreaker

Subject: Speed Date: Recently Accepted Applicants

To view recently accepted applicants for the Pocket Change Natural
Selection Speed Date available exclusively to wealthy men and
beautiful women, please click here:

http://r.vresp.com/?PocketChange/9e114534ce/830089/a45b69041f/fa2fc99

______________________________________________________________________
This message was sent by Pocket Change

Pocket Change
73 Spring Street
Suite 406
New York, New York 10012

Professor Trevor Cox of Salford University in England has released the results of an online acoustics experiment that involved over 1 million volunteers to determine, amongst other things, the worst sound in the world. I won’t spoil it, just listen. Maybe this will keep that pesky associate away from your cubicle for five minutes.

Other items on the list of worst sounds included microphone feedback, multiple babies crying, general scraping, chalkboard scraping, multiple babies scraping into hot microphones and your Blackberry past 7:00pm on a Friday.

Most Horrible Sound in the World – [The Lede]
The Actual Most Horrible Sound in the World
Vote for the Worst Sound

We realize that every time we write about another Geoffrey Raymond masterpiece (Grasso, Blankfein, etc.), we're only encouraging him. But it's that long stretch of afternoon when there's not too much to post about (admit it: that last Jobs one, save for the fantastic accompanying picture, didn't make your DB Top Ten list); so we're going to indulge him, once again. After the jump, his latest portrait. Let us just say, the resemblance is striking.

If you were taking a body shot off of Melinda Gates’ chest at Davos and overheard someone mutter “is there a Chinese guy bitching about Starbucks?,” it was not the oxycotin chaser talking, it was Rui Chenggang.

Chinese television anchor Rui Chenggang is throwing a hissy fit over the Starbucks that resides inconspicuously in the Forbidden City, located in the middle of Bejing, surrounded by a six meter deep moat and ten meter high wall. The literal translation of the Chinese term used to describe the Forbidden City means “Purple Forbidden City,” which sounds like a bad Jefferson Starship song or porno, and thus was lost in translation. Home to Emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasties and now home to the Grande Half-Skim Cinnamon Dolce Latte, the site is the world’s largest palace complex.

Can you imagine there not being a Starbucks within a world’s largest palace complex distance from your office? For me, case closed, for Rui-dog, he’s out for justice, and this time it’s personal. When not sculpting his guns at the office or eating a whale’s vagina (a Chinese delicacy), anchorman Chenggang is blogging about evil American companies or how President Jintao’s gold Marc by Marc Jacobs bag is both undeniably adorable and totally not okay, all at once. Chenggangbang originally launched his complaint against Starbucks in his blog, which then led to a comment denouncing the coffee chain’s location on Chinese television last week. Now, Rui has been Chengspotted at a press luncheon in Davos expressing his surprise to the widespread reaction to his blog, which has attracted over half a million readers and elicited over 2,000 comments.

Starbucks has 53 other locations in Bejing, none more popular than the Forbidden City location, partly because the bathroom inside the Forbidden City Starbucks contains the only other Imperial throne within the complex.

With the success of the Starbucks location, a slew of other American franchises and other businessmen are rumored to be opening locations in the Forbidden City including:

-A Pizza Hut inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony (huge startup synergies with the Hall’s current pagoda architecture)
-A Taco Bell inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity (image consultants were responsible for this, trying to shed the chain’s E.coli burrito factory reputation)
-A disgruntled hot-dog vendor outside the Gate of Divine Might

Also the Mongolians have been spied trying to smuggle in one of their patented woks past the Meridian Gate and into one of the Three Front Halls.

The Starbucks website is currently unable to map the location of its Forbidden City branch, and you need to call the store directly for hours.

Tempest in a Coffee Cup – [DealBook]

The Steve Jobs/backdating thing held our interest for a while but ultimately tapered off because of the all talk, no action nature of the whole situation. Yes, we get that it’s hard to take (literal) shots at the man who brought us the singular sensation that is the PC half of the “I’m A MAC, I’m a PC” commercials but come on—don’t get us all excited with your verbal assaults for nothing. So we were pretty happy to read that The New York City Employees’ Retirement System will be the lead plaintiff in a shareholder suit against Apple, brought to you by the fund’s law firm, Grant & Eisenhofer. The NYC fund was selected by Judge Jeremy Fogel, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, late last Friday. The fund owns about 1 million shares of Apple (approximately $87 million).

New York pension fund takes lead in Apple lawsuit [Reuters via ZDNet via Daily Intel]

When we told you earlier this morning that today’s theme was Ride the Smut Train With Us While You Can Still Get A Seat, we weren’t kidding. But that’s because 1. The WSJ said it was okay and 2. We thought there’d be a lot more trash to dirty our hands with; turns out, today, not so much. The following basically warrants half a siren or a third of a siren, but, unfortunately, Drudge has yet to come up with a graphic for us to represent the less-than-juicy nature of this item. Nonetheless, it piqued our interest, if only because from it, we can draw a tangential relationship to Senator Schumes, whom we adore.*

Which new Spitzer appointee is going to find threesomes a lot harder to come by in Albany than he did in Manhattan?

Don’t Shoot the Messenger [New York Daily News]

*Concerned about our obvious affinity for men on the Hill (Schumer, Corzine, Biden, Feingold, etc)? Our therapist says it has to do with not being hugged enough by members of Congress during childhood. You have your thing, we have ours.

The 3,618 securities on the "exchange" unit of the NYSE are going fully electronic today. The average time to complete a trade on the NYSE has fallen from 9 seconds to 0.3 seconds over the last several months with the increased push toward automation and gradual siphoning of human resources. The exchange hopes to reduce trading time by an additional 90% this year, and then hopes to pre-empt your trades before you place them once the pre-cogs under control.

Since late 2005 restrictions on electronic trading volume were modified to allow for large automatic orders (max 1 million shares), 80% of current trading is electronic, up from 19% earlier last year. There are still around 100 NYSE stocks that still require an indigenous pack animal to trade, but the restrictions on those securities are expected to be modified this week.

The increased electronic trading has resulted in a slight increase in average NYSE stock trade volatility, which may mean the machines are getting smarter, and already skimming a bit off the top. NYSE and dystopian robot army apologists claim that the average volatility of NYSE stock trades is still less than the NASDAQ.

The NYSE: Faster (and Lonelier) – [WSJ]

Sure, it’s all fun and games when you’re married to a guy who appreciates the fact that sometimes you just need a $6,000 shower curtain to compliment your $30 million penthouse, and who hires crackpot (or genius?) party planners to throw you a birthday bash replete with ice sculptures of the David urinating Stoli. But you’ve got to kind of have it in the back of your head that divorcing that same man might not be as pleasant. If she didn’t, Dennis Kozlowski’s former wife, Karen, is getting a crash course in what disentangling yourself from a dick is like. (Hint: not as fun it sounds). The ex-Tyco CEO, who’s currently serving an eight and one-third year sentence for misappropriating in excess of $400 million of the company’s funds, “has refused to produce even one document which may reflect his present wherewithal.” There are, of course, a host of reasons why Big K might not want to reveal his financial information, including a desire to “make it difficult for shareholders who he has victimized to track down those assets down,” according to Jay Eisenhofer, an attorney in a pending shareholder securities class-action suit against Kozlowski and Tyco. The other is a fear of Inmate #483, who'll likely demand more than just 2 cigs and some spooning next time Denny-boy needs some protection.

KOZ WON'T COUGH UP $ PAPERS [NYPost]

Perhaps we should have seen this coming, with Peyton Manning beating the Patriots in a playoff game, but today marks the official beginning of the apocalypse and ensuing rapture as Jesus, who must’ve pissed off Shiva or done something dodgy in a former life, has been reincarnated as a Komodo dragon. Fortunately for I-banking analysts, who have experienced more than enough suffering to be martyred, will be taken up to some protected realm before the tribulation, perhaps to one of the cushier buy side shops. The majority of your colleagues, however, will be left to deal with the 200 million horsemen left to kill the wicked, intense heat, blood soaked waterways, earthquakes and outbreaks of boils and carbuncles.

The current market impact of the apocalypse has been slight thus far, and the S&P is up 0.33%.

Before the tribulation (God's wrath against the wicked, amonst other things) can take place, the following conditions must hold:

1. The nations of the world must unify their currency onto a universal standard. [Those Susan B Anthony and Sacagawea coins are just sitting around.]

2. There will be peace in Israel according to Ezekiel 38. [Ezekiel 38 is an Uzbek blogger who thinks unionized nematodes are responsible for many world phenomena. Peace in Israel is actually one of his saner postulates.]

3. There may be a one world government, something like the 7th beast of Revelation, prior to the antichrist's 8th beast government. [There’s not exactly one world government, but this definitely foments speculation on whether the "8th beast" is Jeb or Hillary.]

4. The Jewish temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt in its original place. [That would mean tearing down the McDonalds.]

5. The Jewish people must be in control of the land of Israel. [Now I don't feel so bad about attacking Iran.]

6. Many Old Testament commandments must be performed in the temple. This includes the sacrifice of an unblemished red heifer. [Kirstie Alley is fat again, right? I smell a live human sacrifice Cheers Reunion. Amidst career death spirals that make Eddie Murphy’s upcoming film “Norbit” seem well thought out, many of the former cast wouldn’t suspect a thing when told that the reunion was being held on a giant granite alter attended by several robed individuals referring to themselves as the “Acolytes of Destruction,” which is also a great metal band. If we’re lucky, Whoopi will attend with Ted Danson, and Danny Devito with Rhea Perlman.]

7. The Anti Christ must be walking the earth in human form. [Insert Ann Coulter joke here.]

We’re almost there, so you might as well go home at 10:00pm tonight, and wear your fiercest striped shirt tomorrow.

Zoo celebrates virgin Komodo birth – [CNN]

The former mayor of New York is expected to sell his boutique investment bank, Giuliani Capital Advisors, the New York Times reports today. The sale is further indication that Mussolini’s heir will make a run for President in ’08, as it is “being pursued to prevent its clients’ activities from being used against Mr. Giuliani in a heated political campaign,” an anonymous source—presumably not Bernie Kerik but who the hell knows—told the Times. The firm could reportedly sell for $80-$100 million.

Giuliani Is Expected to Sell One of His Three Businesses [NYTimes]

With the exception of yesterday’s code red, we generally like to stay away from reporting gossip, especially that of the salacious variety. It strikes us as kind of mean-spirited, off topic, and disrespectful to everyone involved, especially ourselves and our liberal arts educations. Which was why we were ready to let the whole Maria. B/Todd T. story die with yesterday’s news, and get back to more high-brow pursuits, including but certainly not limited to nonstop Amaranth coverage (which has admittedly slowed down, with the absence of Monsieur Carney), the Wharton Lauder Institute’s MBA All-Star Team, and who’s nailing whom at Davos (hint: Bono has an inexplicable taste for anyone with his/her own search engine company). But that resolution went to hell when we were notified that our moral compass, the Wall Street Journal, had decided to get in on the action. So jump on the smut train with us because we are rolling out of the station circa now.

Everyone knows about the infamous flight from Beijing (which the Post has been good enough to crunch some numbers on this morning). Citi CEO Charles Prince, who’d been trying to cut costs, was understandably ticked about it, etc, etc, etc. But, obviously, there’s more.

1.According to the Journal, post-plane incident, Prince instructed Thomson to not spend any Citi money “on anything involving Ms. Bartiromo” (edible undies, though a fraction of the transpacific, transcontinental flight, presumably included).

2.Instead of not spending any Citi money on “anything involving Ms. Bartiromo, Thomson (who apparently gets off on big slaps to the face) notified his boss that he’d signed Citi up to sponsor a Sundance Channel show hosted by Robert Redford and, drum roll, please: Maria Bartiromo.

3.Thomson, who, previous to his post at Citi, had dreams of a career in interior design, had a wood-burning fireplace installed in his office, which he rationalized to associates by claiming it added “drama.” The fireplace was fish tank-adjacent. The office was dubbed “Todd Mahal” by Citi employees.

TIGHTENING THE BELT: In Citigroup Ouster, A Battle Over Expenses [WSJ]

KKR announced its plans to put $700mm into Sun Microsystems today. The buyout firm is placing the investment in two tranches of convertible debt and will receive a board seat. Sun shares are currently up over 8% and edging closer to the KKR convertible strike price of $7.21. This deal is part of the growing tide of speculation regarding private equity investments in tech, which usually result in non-control positions for buyout firms.

Sun released earnings yesterday, posting its first positive EPS since mid 2005, and a 7% jump in revenue. Both figures cocksmacked analyst forcasts by a slight margin. Sun has $3.5bn of cash and marketable securities and is cash flow positive.

KKR puts faith in Sun's rise with $700m deal – [MSNBC]

Punch and Wetherspoon report steady Xmas at pubs (Reuters)
Shoppers on both sides of the Atlantic failed to hit the shops in droves this Christmas, but it appears they didn't hold back on holiday cheer of a different sort. At least that's the case in Britain where big pub chains are traded publicly. Punch and Wetherspoon turned in a brisk performance at its 9,300 locations. Interestingly, with a national smoking ban looming (feel better, it's not just NY), the chain decided to ban smoking pre-emptively at many of its locations, a move that appears not to have hurt performance.

China to diversify FX reserves (Information Processing)
No, really, this time they mean it. Really, seriously. This time China is actually going to diversify its foreign currency reserves away from pure dollar holdings. What, you're not convinced? No, seriously, why don't you see it? They have to. Oh, yeah, sure this has been said a lot in the past, but this time it's for real. Better watch out, this could be trouble. Just wait until China really starts dumping its Dollars. Seriously, this time it's for real. Honestly!

Searching for a tech rally (CNNMoney)
After a bunch of disappointing results, two longtime punks finally turned in some okay numbers. First, Sun Microsystems -- the last bubble darling not to have rebounded -- finally returned to black, as Jonathan Schwartz tries to pull off a Mark Hurd act (although nobody would ever compare McNealy to Carly, lest they want to get smacked). Its shares gained 8% on the news. And at Yahoo, another internet has-been, shares rose moderately after the CEO promised that good times were right around the corner. The numbers themselves weren't particularly exciting, but the CEO promised, so that was apparently good enough.

Reworking the A-List (NYT)
Earlier this week, we derided the Davos forum for essentially being a big 1990s class reunion, out of touch with the modern economy and political situation. Maybe we were being too harsh. Hey, neither Angelina Jolie nor Bill Clinton are in attendance this year. You're probably not going to find Kofi Annan either. Of course BIll Gates is still there, he is after all the richest man in the world. But so is YouTube's Chad Hurley. Then again, so is Bono, so you see the event has a hard time giving up on its past. As for American politics, the big name is John McCain, speaking about the situation in Iraq. Until he loses the upcoming election, he still gets some time as the Republican that even internationalists can like. After that though, his time is up.

$$$Wall Street ladies: let this be a warning to you. Never get undressed. [METRO.co.uk]

$$$Are you a 28-38 year old Master Of The Universe™ who works more than 50 hours a week, is confident with a touch of arrogance, has an insatiable sexual appetite, enjoys pokers nights and the occasional trip to Scores, looking for demanding yet somewhat submissive blonde who is a size 0 and willing to let you occasionally sleep with her friends? You've come to the right place. [Craigslist]

$$$ How to Improve the Value of AT&T (T) [Long or Short Capital]

With so many new Democrats in Congress, maybe the interstitial clapping portions of tonight’s State of the Union address will be shorter than usual, making the speech a bit more bearable to watch.

Becuse State of the Union addresses are generally a string of unmet promises, they generally have little market impact, with the S&P 500 rising an average of just 0.01% the day after the last 57 speeches. The exceptions are Papa Bush’s 1991 speech and Nixon’s 1970 speech, driving the S&P up 4% and down 5% respectively during the ensuing week. Unfortunately there are a few current parallels to 1970, when the nation faced an increasingly unpopular war and the gradual decline of the dollar triggered rising oil prices culminating in the 1973 crisis. Also, for some reason, W. might be clamoring for a doubling of the nation's oil reserves.

Does the State of the Union move stocks? – [Bloggingstocks]
SPR – [Hedgefolios]
From Rostrum to Reality: How Past Pledges Played Out – [WSJ]
President Faces Skeptical Public – [WSJ]

Now that the housekeeping’s taken care of, now seems like as good a time as any to introduce our latest and greatest Planespotting feature. Our ad guy worked overtime this month—that or ‘Zbignew’ and ‘Anonymous’ have been clicking the hell out of the CFO.com skyscraper—and we found ourselves with a little extra spending money. Naturally this surplus went toward our top priority here in the DB HQs: Planespotting, and derivatives thereof. Since everyone (who matters) is in that canton of Graubünden, Landwasser River-adjacent, or en route, and a whole Planespotting of “W, X, Y Z went from here to there on their aircraft carriers of choice” leaves something to be desired, we decided to put our pocket change to good use and send some special correspondents to do a little undercover work, pre-aviationally speaking, to find out who’s afraid of flying, who’s got to have the window seat, and who’s planning on saying “F the FAA, I’ll take my disposable razor on the plane in order to get a quick shave in before landing and I dare them to stop me,” etc, etc. You will find the first report after the jump. And watch for the second installment of this series on Thursday, when we reveal which Fortune 500 CEO Special Correspondent Bono found out a little too much about in a Zurich Airport Men’s Room. Stay tuned.

VF Corp is shedding its intimate apparel brands like the many pounds its full-figured customers resolved to shed after the holiday. VF is selling the overstuffed unit for $350mm in cash to Berkshire Hathaway’s Fruit of the Loom, which will now become Entire Produce Section of the Loom. W. Buffet has been known to fancy a little junk in the trunk.

The sale allows VF Corp to focus on its core brands. VF Corp owns most of the denim featured in modern cowboy and B movies, in brands such as Wrangler, Lee, North Face, Nautica, Hero by Wrangler, Rustler, Riders, Timber Creek by Wrangler, Buttless by Wrangler and Mantasm by Lee.

VF’s intimate apparel unit consists of the brands Vanity Fair, Vassarette, Bestform, Curvation and five or more brands designed for Spanish prostitutes.

Curvation is perhaps the most awesome widely known VF Intimate apparel brand, serving the estimated 60 million “curvaceous” women in the US. Curvation’s goal is to:

Translate our design expertise into a wardrobe of intimate apparel that offers women beautiful, figure-enhancing options to celebrate their curves. We hope CURVATION® creates a new language to convey a very positive message of confidence, sensuality and femininity.

I also hope Curvation creates a new language to convey this evolving paradigm of feminine beauty. I no longer want to refer to functional camping gear; I want to refer to my time on Everest’s Base Camp as spent in Queen Latifah’s sarong. I didn’t cover my pool with a tarp over the winter, I used Mo’nique’s slip. I didn’t repair the leak in the Seawolf class submarine with a 15,000 psi industrial strength compression tube fitting, I used Roseanne’s girdle.

VF Corp (NYSE: VFC) is trading down almost 5% today in a rather steep curvaceous decline.

VF Sheds Intimate Apparel Business – [DealBook]

With a little help from the Journal...

A survey released today by Prince & Associates in collaboration with wealth consultant Hannah Grove found that 70% of today’s multimillionaires said being wealthy gave them “better sex.” A majority also said wealth gave them “more adventurous and exotic” sex lives.

The survey polled nearly 600 men and women with net worths of more than $30 million and a mean net worth of $89 million. While not scientific, the survey is large for such a wealthy group and offers a rare glimpse of the sex lives of today’s rich. The survey polled men and women who were the financial “principals,” meaning they were the primary decision makers in their households.

“What this tells us is that, on the whole, more money equals more magic in bed,” says Prince & Associates founder Russ Prince.

Or en route to Beijing.

The Rich Libido [WSJ]

Wal-Mart is responsible for a handful of the dumbest 101 corporate acts in America this year, according to CNNMoney's annual list. A summary of Wal-Mart’s greatest hits this year:

1. The “Candidate Wal-Mart” ad campaign, contradicting the store’s 1st quarterly profit drop in ten years and a relatively weak 2006 holiday season.

2. Hiring former U.N. ambassador and civil rights leader Andrew Young to head its “Working Families for Wal-Mart” drive. Young quickly used this as a soapbox for bemoaning the shifty practices of Jewish, Korean and Arab small business owners, which were threatening Wal-Mart in various unforeseen and often naturally musky ways.

3. Former Wal-Mart vice chairman and head coach of the New York Giants, Tom Coughlin using fraudulent expense invoices to skim off a half million dollars to crush unions into the topsoil and retain Tiki Barber.

4. The Wal-Mart Across America Blog, which chronicled the completely “random” adventures of Jim and Laura as they drove around in an RV only to meet an unexpectedly large number of people who had been touched in a very special place by Wal-Mart. To the surprise of everyone with a severed corpus callosum the story of how a Wal-Mart apron doused in Sam Walton’s sweat cured JoBob of his Feline AIDS and the story of how Latisha’s second job to sustain a living wage prevented her from being home while her house was burgled turned out to be a sham. Wal-Mart paid for the whole thing, and Jim and Laura were salaried transients. The blog is no longer active, and set to re-launch as Fashionista.com this week.

5. Introducing a line of Human Coffee Tables™ in the Jiangsu province of China. Always looking for the most cost-effective materials, human provided a far lower cost/unit than plastic or titanium, but a far greater maintenance fee, to the chagrin of Chinese consumers. Wal-Mart is still working on salvaging its reputation after the messy recall.

6. Firing senior VP Julie Roehm for eating dinner at a hip Manhattan restaurant (i.e. – The Shake Shack) on a courting ad agency’s dime. The ad agency was asked back to Roehm’s place but only got to second base because it couldn’t find any birth control at Wal-Mart.

7. Making DVD recommendations on the Wal-Mart website that included a link connecting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Planet of the Apes to a Martin Luther King biopic and Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (this is not a joke). The link from Sam Walton’s Biography to Mein Kampf was nowhere to be found.

Wal-Mart’s PR Bloopers – [CNNMoney]

If you guessed Todd Thomson, you are dead wrong but apparently have a sick and twisted sense of humor, and for that win two points and a copy of the Welch family’s Winning: The Answers. Now, onto the real answer: everyone at the World Economic Forum in Davos, that’s who! When we told you earlier this morning that we—snubbed as we were without an invitation*—would be giving you round the clock updates on what’s going to be a historic Five-Day Long E-bender Meeting of the Minds, we meant it. We’ve been checking in with our trifecta of unofficial reporters**, which include DealBook, Bloomberg, and the teeny camera on Daniel Loeb’s left lapel (and, when the change is necessary, his belt buckle) and, boy, do they have some mind blowing mildly amusing stuff to report. Let’s start in reverse order because, truth be told, we’re feeling frisky:

1.Loeb’s hidden camera: it’s hard to make out but it looks as though we’re in…we’re in…we’re in a bathroom. Loeb’s talking to some guy who, um, this is weird, has no shirt on and has—what the hell…a tie around his head? Hey, Minkin, come take a look at this, is Loeb actually talking to a shirtless guy with a tie around his head or are we just down tripping from this morning? The guy Loeb’s talking to IS Loeb? Okay…weird but okay…It’s hard to make out but it sounds like he’s saying something about “day by day”? We have no idea what all this means, just that ridiculousness of this kind is typical Loeb and typical Davos.

2.Bloomberg: Reports that Larry Summers is putting the spin skills he acquired last year after his little mishap with the ladies to good use, because “Davos is perhaps the one place that’s more politically correct than even the college campus.” Translation: it’s the beginning of the week people, what do you expect? Everyone’s just getting to know each other and there’s a lot of uncomfortable silences and awkward fumbling of buttons and zippers. Just wait, though; by the end of the week everyone will know where and how everyone else likes to be touched and we’ll be smooth sailing.

Bloomberg also wonders aloud in its party coverage whether or not it can get away with shaming WEF planners for “loving lofty themes,” when Bloomberg itself writes sentences like “To outsiders, it's the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. To the cognoscenti, it's simply Davos.” Comes to the conclusion that it cannot.

3.DealBook:
a.There’s no snow.
b.The parties lined up for this week are going to be OFF THE HOOK. Apparently the “hottest ticket this year” is an invitation-only breakfast on Saturday given by Billy-boy Gates and his wife, Melly. Bill’s been known on more than one occasion to go crazy and EAT BREAKFAST FOR DINNER, so who the heck knows what he’s got up his sleeve this time.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ Sam DiPiazza is having a cocktail party tonight which you know can only mean one thing—KEGGER. You didn’t hear this from us, but the sleuths at DB report that SD is rumored to be going for his keg-stand personal best tonight, and must beat 136 seconds. Let’s see what happens.

Tomorrow, Steve Forbes is throwing “what promises to be a raucous party, which rock star Bono, whose investment firm, Elevation Partners, just bought a stake in the Forbes publishing company, is expected to attend.” For everyone who will be in attendence’s sakes, let’s hope not—Bono is known on the party circuit to get shamelessly drunk and make outrageous claims like he wrote the lyrics to “Roxanne,” refusing to allow anyone to reason with him and totally killing everyone's buzz.

The Nebbishy Master of the Universe has planned a party for Friday night which should be the social event of the week, considering his recently acquired pocket change but, then again, considering who we’re dealing with, it could end up being cheap beer and 1-topping pizza on paper plates. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

More as it unfolds.

* Jerks. JK. JK, we’re serious.
**in that we’ve contracted their services without their knowledge because we’re just that good.

A series of recent experiments at Harvard and Princeton has demonstrated that magical reasoning can be evoked in adults, from voodoo doll induced migraines to the winner of the Super Bowl.

Since “magical thinking is most evident precisely when people feel most helpless,” young financial professionals are especially prone. I, for one, often believed that my tears, falling on the cold floor of a 19th floor bathroom stall at 277 Park Avenue, could cure sick puppies and minor skin ailments. "Surely those 110-hour weeks are worth the eradication of Sparky’s intestinal flukes and grandpa's eczema," I sobbed.

Another cool magic trick bankers go for is the one where you give up the majority of your 20s and acquire fabulous wealth, lavish accommodations and girls you couldn’t get in college, then retire at the end of the decade and do what you really want to do. Unfortunately, “reality is the most potent check on runaway magical thoughts.” Reality and phantom Blackberry induced night terrors.

Do You Believe in Magic? – [NYTimes]

Erstwhile securities regulation defender Eliot Spitzer has drastically changed his tune concerning the Street since yesterday’s Apocalypse-Five-Years-From-Now report, issued by Senator Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg. The study found that Wall Street stands to lose up to 60,000 jobs in the next five years unless “cumbersome” government regulations are discarded and replaced by “looser European-style ones,” cautioning that New York could lose up to $25 billion in cash currently generated by Wall Street “unless their blueprint for revising securities regulations is heeded.” Seemingly something that Spitzer would be ardently against, the newly-elected governor jumped ship yesterday afternoon and offered, "We must take these recommendations seriously so as to support an economic climate ripe for financial services,” pledging to stand by the Schumster and Bloomberg in their quest to save Wall Street’s “dominance in the world financial scene.” Pretty sure he’s still intent on “seeing that twerp Grasso fry,” however.

NEW TUNE [NYPost]

President and CEO of Gap Inc, Paul Pressler, is stepping down today, to be replaced on an interim basis by Robert Fisher, the current non-exec chairman of Gap’s board.

Gap averaged an (8%) decline in same store sales in CYQ4 and experienced monthly same store sales declines in every month in CY2006 but January. The ICSC Retail Chain Stores Sales Index averaged around 3% monthly growth in same store sales in 2006, but suffered half a percentage point dip in holiday sales growth compared to last year.

In the overall retail market, luxury retailers saw a significant (above 5%) boost in same store holiday sales, while department stores recorded slight gains, taking business from specialty retailers like Gap.

Gap’s (NYSE: GPS) shares are currently trading down over 3/4ths of a percent.

Gap Will Fashion Its Future Without Pressler – [WSJ]
Gap Press Release

Which former head of Global Wealth Management at a major New York bank is leaving his wife and two kids for a talking head on a major financial news network? Feel free to leave your guesses in the comment section below.

Scratch what we said last week about hedge fund mania being offically over. On the contrary, the obsession has just now reached a fever pitch. Know how we know? Former Clinton Secretary of State Maddie Albright has joined the party, with Albright Capital Management. Is the arrival of ex-government officials/investing-neophytes (Richard Breeden got in on the action last week) a product of doors being opened to all by the "Everybody Clap Yer Hands And Say Hedge Fund!" movement (aided by things like Hedge Funds for Dummies)? Maybe. But more importantly, can Albright and co. serve some sort of productive purpose, other than wetting everyone's appetite for Doug Ellin's new show? Daniel Gross says yes.

The most recent duo of public servants turned hedge-fund managers is seeking to apply public-sector experience directly to the management of private capital. Rather than buy and sell dozens of stocks and trade them quickly, Breeden, who has landed consulting gigs monitoring bankrupt WorldCom and investigating shenanigans at Conrad Black's Hollinger, said he planned to buy a handful of stocks at undervalued companies—and then use his status as a corporate-governance expert to prod management into boosting shareholder value.

Albright is taking this practice a few rungs up the value chain. Rather than simply sell advice based on her experience and connections, she's selling investment-management services based on her experience and connections. Investment management has much higher profit margins.

So. The World Economic Forum. In Davos, Switzerland. Beginning today. Obviously our invites got lost in the mail (we’ve never trusted the postal service before and, apparently, our “paranoia,” as some like to call it, was completely warranted). But that’s kind of beside the point—it’s not like Carney could even go, what with the “broken leg,” and even if my invitation hadn’t been misplaced, this week’s been pretty jammed for me since before May. So the DealBreakers probably would’ve had to say “rain check” to the whole event, anyway. Which was fine by us, we weren’t bitter or anything about the snub silly mix-up. Until we read Bloomberg’s first journal entry describing what sounds like the most insane rave/orgy/social experiment/acid trip ever, that is.

This week, [Andreas] Heinecke brings his drapes and deadbolts to the 37th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he aims to usher luminaries such as BP Plc Chief Executive Officer John Browne and Coca-Cola Co. CEO E. Neville Isdell into a pitch-black sensory deprivation chamber alongside Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, Citigroup Inc. CEO Charles Prince and hedge fund Third Point LLC's chief executive, Daniel Loeb.

``Dialogue in the Dark is an intimidating situation,” Heinecke says of his mischievous management training method, which involves CEOs spending an hour inside a dark room rigged with surprises and traps while attempting to accomplish a series of tasks and discussing how they feel about losing their authority and influence.

The WEF game plan involves Israeli philosopher Addyd Emile, three multilingual blind women and a wine bar to help 24 WEF delegates at a time to ``rely on their humanity to survive'' an encounter with their personal hobgoblins.

Navigating the maze without vision combines the tingle of an amusement-park thrill ride with the resoluteness of making instantaneous decisions that affect the other executive team members. The global leaders are probably in for “a magical mystery tour of management'' once they enter the dark room.

Now we’d give Carney’s one functioning leg to be there. We guess The 'Berg's updates will have to suffice. And DealBook's Davos Diary. And the hidden camera we got Daniel Loeb to agree to wear pinned to the lapel of his jacket for the entirety of the conference.

Chiefs at Davos Face Panic, Intimidation in Darkness at Noon [Bloomberg]
Your Invitation to Mingle With Bono [DealBook]

Tate & Lyle Shares Slump as Profit to Miss Target (Bloomberg)
Is the Splenda age starting to wane? Shares of Tate & Lyle slumped badly after the company warned that sales of the sucralose-based (100x sweeter than sucrose!) artificial sweetener, Splenda, would grow only modestly. This is a far cry from a couple years ago, when there was a bona fide shortage of the stuff, as lusty diners would pack the yellow packets away in their purse for use in future drinks. Also, there's an interesting lesson here. Tate & Lyle only invented Splenda after the EU pared back sugar subsidies, and damaged its business. Seems like a good case for reducing subsidies, no?

Gas Station To Offer 'Terror-Free' Oil (Newsnet5.com)
For the economics impaired, you now have a way to fill up your SUV sans-guilt. There's an increasing trend of gas stations offering 'terror-free' fill ups -- basically, gasoline that was imported from a country that's not a sponsor of terror. As some are noting, this sounds a little bit like eco-labeling, such as the practice of putting "dolphin-free" on a can of Tuna. Actually, it's much stupider, since most oil producing states don't care who they sell to. So if you buy good ol' Texas gasoline, then Iran will just sell somewhere else -- and if you bid the price of Texas gas higher, then ultimately it will push the price of Persian gas up as well.

Illinois Is Putting Lottery on Block for Quick Payoff (NYT)
The morality and legality of gambling really comes down to who is playing house. If it's some Gibraltar-based online casino then it's a scourge that's ruining families and is practically in the same business as the mob. If it's a public institution, then, well, all bets are off. Certainly, the state of Illinois has no problem collecting a $10 billion windfall from gambling, as it's set to sell its lottery -- the whole damn thing, monopoly and all -- to a private buyer. The state has partnered with UBS for the deal, although UBS should be worried that one day even lotteries will be illegal, and they'll be investigating companies that were involved with the industry back when it was legal.

Oil bounces above $53 (CNNMoney)
It snowed in New York yesterday. Not a whole lot, but there was a short period when some big fat flakes came down and it must've reminded traders that the winter is far from over. It was pretty depressing actually, and it sent oil back to $53.

$$$ Translating Corporate Speak: Venezuela and VNT [Long or Short Capital]

$$$Towel Talk: Bush to propose tax increase, Rove to lose five bucks. [Blogging Stocks]

$$$99% of you've already marked this down on your calendar, but whoever said it hurts to reiterate things of great import? [MyOpenBar.com]

$$$Any coprophiliacs in the audience? (this is Carney, btw) [Craigslist]

The helpful *new* daily site Yahoo! Personal Finance has users getting all sorts of interactive up in its grill. Now heightening its interactivity to almost Tron-like levels, silly people represented by cartoonish avatars get to vote on the “best financial move you can make in 2007.” After the vote, the matter will be decided. Thank you Yahoo!. The possible answers, according to Yahoo! are:
Buy a home
Buy a car
Pay off all my debt
Aggressively boost my retirement savings
Get a better paying job

Yahoo! is clearly pigeon-holing its users with these 5 rather limited options. In response, here is my extremely constructive, non-slow news day addendum to Yahoo!’s survey.

Better financial moves you can make in 2007:
Buy Illinois Ave
Extortion
Timidly shrink my retirement savings
Buy a (golden rocket) car
Pay off all the people hired to strong arm the people to whom I owe debt
Move savings from jar on window sill to under mattress
Divorce natural gas trading spouse
Quit my job to become a blogger (as the Huffington Post inaccurately claims)

Yahoo’s Daily Condescension

Are you a CFO? Do you hate your job? Do you hate your job? Then you must be a CFO. (That's right, a little commutative property at work here @ the DB HQs. We took honors math, no big deal...). No longer relegated to merely dentists, Cornell students and Enron CEOs, “Occupations with the Highest Rate of Suicide” now count CFO as one of its darlings.** Apparently being a Chief Financial Officer translates to all of the sweat and none of the glory, meaning you’re more likely to be working late nights at your desk than blowing coke off of a hooker’s breasts. No wonder, then, that BofA’s Alvaro De Molina, Citi’s Sallie Krawcheck, and at least 12 other CFOs wanted out of the position over the last year. Who’s to blame? According to Fortune’s Telis Demos, for the most part, the SEC.

In today's Sarbanes-Oxley world, the chief financial officer post - once a finishing school for future CEOs - has become the crummiest gig in the corporate suite. Combine the workload necessary to comply with the controversial 2002 legislation and the knowledge that you're almost certainly the sacrificial lamb if the SEC comes calling, and it's a recipe for skyrocketing turnover.

Companies with a market cap of at least $1 billion changed CFOs three times more often in 2005 than in 2002, according to 10k Wizard. And while the rate of exits slowed a bit at big companies last year, Richard Jacovitz of liberum Research found that among public companies of all sizes, CFO exits increased from 1,867 in 2005 to 2,302 in 2006.

SarbOx has forced CFOs to spend nearly a third of their time on IT systems, paperwork, and tedious board inquiries rather than on the big picture, say headhunters and former executives. That's in addition to typical responsibilities like communicating with Wall Street and dealing with creditors.

The situation is now allegedly so bad that companies are turning to temps.

Doesn't anyone want to be a CFO anymore? [Fortune]

*Seemed more legit than "CFOs: The Only Absentees In The Coke Den"
**Or should, considering the evidence.

The French family, owner of NY TV station WRNN, is about to purchase the assets of Piquant LLC, the investor consortium that owns Air America. The Frenches and Air America are joining the ranks of bankrupt entities and the merging managers who merge them, all so Richard French, son of Dick French (that is not a typo, honest), son of Giant Throbbing Schlong French, can be given another nightly TV show.

Piquant LLC filed for Ch. 11 on October 13, 2006 and has actively been courting potential buyers with iPod adaptors for the Toyota Prius and bootlegged tapes of the ’97 Lilith Fair. When it isn’t taking illegal loans from local Boys and Girls Clubs, Air America is writing IOUs to its creditors on recycled free-trade stationary processed by great horned owls indigenous to areas deforested by large paper companies. The station has almost $20mm in short term liabilities, mostly owed to the defense company contracted to build a Coulter-proof fence. Also a big chunk of non-satirical money is owed to Al Franken, Citi and RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.

Those silly tax and spend liberals have a lot to learn from their fiscally prudent republican counterparts, and probably shouldn’t have thrown a $70k party before launching at the Maritime to reinforce the perception of liberal as homosexual sailor.

Air America Nears Sale to Group Led by the French Family – [WSJ]

The founder and CEO of Jobster, Jason Goldberg, is one of many executive bloggers, but most likely the only one who gives hints of massive layoffs in his posts. Right after the New Year, Goldberg cut 40% of the staff, or 66 employees. Despite rumors of layoffs before the holiday, Goldberg assuaged his employees’ concerns by posting a list of songs he was listening to, which were basically all songs in the “triumph in the face of adversity,” “ad astra per aspera,” or “you’re about to get fired,” genre.

Goldberg continues to blog away, so below is a helpful primer that lists the activity that corresponds to each song that Goldberg posts about:

Pour Some Sugar on Me – Def Leopard (Baking a cake)
Dust in the Wind – Kansas (Spring cleaning)
It Wasn’t Me – Shaggy (Testifying in court)
Plush – Stone Temple Pilots (Reupholstering couch)
Jump – Van Halen (Contemplating Suicide)
We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel (Arson)
Turning Japanese – The Vapors (Completing a Sudoku puzzle)
Unskinny Bop – Poison (Starting diet)
Put It in Your Mouth – Akinyele (Finishing diet)
The Sweater Song – Weezer (Cursing discovery of mothballs)
You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – BTO (Attending speech therapy)
Ignition (Remix) – R. Kelly (Buying new car/having sex with underage girl)
Ironic – Alanis Morissette (Meeting the man of his dreams, then meeting his beautiful wife)

A Boss Takes to His Blog to Deny, Then Confirm – [DealBook]
Jobster Blog

Jack Welch is sick and tired of the media harping on high CEO pay, okay? Though he didn’t issue a Godfather-inspired statement about his feelings to the press, he did gather the kiddies round the ye old 92nd Street Y campfire last Thursday night and tell them, "The problem with CEOs is that the board screws up the succession plan. The most egregious payment systems come when someone gets fired, and the board has no ascension plan. Then they have to pay for a new star at another company.” You see, now? It’s the board that messes everything up. The CEO is just an innocent bystander, caught helpless in the crossfire. Daily Intel’s Arianne Cohen also reports that Jackie-boy, estimated at $1 billion, pre-divorce, believes himself to have been “vastly underpaid” and also worries that the media’s scrutiny on CEO pay will cause “good people” to switch to private equity.

On a related note, we have about fifty copies left of the Welch family’s Winning: The Answers; anyone interested, you know where to find us. Otherwise, we’re going to have to make Carney start passing them out next to the AM NY pushers outside the subway as part of his physical therapy program. You don’t want to have to dodge a man on crutches that early in the morning, now do you? He’s small, but boy is he fierce.

Jack Welch (Unsurprisingly) Thinks Media Should Stop Focusing on High CEO Pay [Daily Intel]

Those who were planning to bet big money online in regards to the outcome of the Super Bowl were served a sizeable setback over the weekend. But, assuming they also earmarked some clams for more “legal” pursuits, and play the bullish side of the market, there shouldn’t be too much to shed tears over.* According to the Super Bowl Stock Indicator, when an old NFL team wins, the Dow Jones average goes up.

The indicator has been correct following 31 of the 40 Super Bowls, wrong five times and was inconclusive four times (but more on that later). Even counting the inconclusive readings, that's about a 78 percent success rate. Dropping the inconclusive years from the equation results lifts the success rate near 89 percent.

The Bears facing the Colts marks the seventh time that two old NFL teams have faced off in the big game. The six previous times that's happened, the Dow has gone up every time, posting an average gain of 18 percent.

And if doesn’t go up, consider one point scored for Super-Bowl-Day-Spousal-Abuse. Either way, you’ve got a winner.

NFL's biggest winner: Bulls, not bears [CNN Money]

*Not that you guys would ever “shed tears,” but, you know, whatever the testosterone-driven equivalent of letting salty discharge come out of your eyes is.

Surrounded by Jerks? If you work at an investment bank, the question is rhetorical, as your weekend probably…did not exist. For everyone else – you’re just a “difficult people” guru and seminar away from coming to terms with your own social awkwardness. Remember, “difficult people are not harmless,” “some people are really bad people,” “don’t drink the yellow snow,” and other life-enhancing platitudes can be yours for $350 an hour. Although this might explain how the gears turn in the financial industry, where the contempt for one giant toolbox can unite a workplace (Oh wait, that's Marxism).

Help, I’m Surrounded By Jerks – [NYTimes]

Larry Summers plus a podium is always an equation for zaniness, whether it’s to discuss the inherent quantitative deficiencies of women, or forecast a global struggle followed by the onset of a worldwide depression. At the 37th meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos this week (not the setup to an Agatha Christie novel, we swear), Summers and financial all-stars like Jean-Claude Trichet (European Central Bank President and quarterback of the Amsterdam Admirals) will serve as resident buzz-kills.

Citing narrowing emerging market vs. government bond yield spreads, historically high leverage multiples on European LBOs and hedge fund leverage reaching 1998 levels, Summers and others are to warn that risk in the current market is “ludicrously underpriced.” This combined with a predicted surge in oil prices and stock market volatility could result in global liquidity issues, a significant market correction and the mobilization of the Serbian army.

Summers, Trichet Warn Davos Party-Goers They Underestimate Risk – [Bloomberg]

A report issued by the Nebbish League (shhh, you wouldn’t have passed up that opportunity either), headed by co-chairs Mike Bloomberg and Chuck Schumer, states that the Street stands to lose up to 60,000 jobs in the next five years unless “cumbersome” government regulations are discarded and replaced by “looser European-style ones” including but not limited to more lax approaches to the ménage a trois. The report cautions that New York could lose up to $25 billion in cash currently generated by Wall Street “unless their blueprint for revising securities regulations is heeded.” Advised changes include:

*Setting up a new a new congressional panel to oversee financial services

*Cutting Homeland Security red tape to make it easier for foreign experts to obtain working visas

*Creating a special international zone here, an "open city" that would allow businesses to operate under a more liberal set of tax and regulatory rules than ordinarily allowed in the U.S.

*Draft concise guidelines for the sometimes ambiguous rules of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

* Restrict class-action lawsuits again companies by capping awards and encouraging more arbitration.

* Adapt principles used by regulators in England and France to get U.S. laws "in global harmony."

* Coordinate U.S. accounting rules with global financial reporting standards.

* Encourage U.S banking regulators to sign a recently adopted global accord, known as Basel II, which puts American banks on the same page with the rest of the world in terms of risk and oversight.

Chuckie-boy also noted somewhat darkly, “The last thing that New York and the country need is to wake up one morning and find we are no longer the financial capital of the world,” which was not unlike how he woke up one day and found out Mrs. Schumer was actually a Puerto Rican trannie named Raoul. Sidebar: the Schumster and I use the same moisturizer.

NOT WELL ST.: CITY OVER A SARBOX BARREL: STUDY [NYPost]

A lawsuit filed by Rush Simonson against Ken Griffin and Citadel has been dropped, according to the hedge fund. The suit, which alleged that Griffin had stolen a business plan that he and Simonson had developed together in the 80s, was voluntarily withdrawn by Simonson on January 17, without compensation for dropping it. Simonson’s lawyer had no comment about the withdrawal and Simonson himself “could not be located for comment,” according to Bloomberg. We’re kind of wondering why, just after Citadel posted gains of more than 30% (outpacing the hedge fund industry by 13%), Simonson would choose to drop his suit. Amidst the rumors that Citadel was the fund in the red, sure, we can see why you wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of getting dressed up for court just to be told the person you’re suing has no money, yes, that we get, but why now, when you know Griffin’s got the cash? Since Simonson (sketchily) “could not be located” to supply us with the answer, we’d like to hear your educated guesses. Did Simonson drop the suit because:

A. He was made to feel extremely uncomfortable by Griffin’s statement that:

``I have fond memories of my days in college when I would run back to my dorm room to execute trades on behalf of the partnerships we had formed…The filing of the lawsuit left me feeling betrayed by my former business partner.''

Citadel Investment, Griffin Say Lawsuit Is Dropped [Bloomberg]

City firms caught in FBI gaming inquiry (Independent)
Question: Doesn't the FBI have something better it can be doing than worrying about online gambling? Answer: No, and they're damn serious about this too. In case you're unclear about this, get it into your head, the US government has really taken a hard, serious stance against wagering over your computer, and if you're in that business at all, it's probably not a bad idea to get out. And, to be honest, even that might not be enough, as the NETeller guys have found out the hard way. According to sources, subpoenas have been issued at several London banks that may or may not have at some point been involved financially with some online gambling firm. It's not clear what they want, or who they're hoping to arrest next. Just, seriously, watch out.

What To Expect At Davos (BusinessWeek)
What reminds you of the 90s? Is it a Clinton running for national office again? What about Brad Pitt at the Gold Globes telling reporters that Babel is an important lesson, because it served as a reminder that we're all the same? Or what about rich dudes, rock stars, philanthropists and UN top brass hobnobbing about saving the world? That's what the World Economic Forum in Davos offers, a brief respite from the cold post -/11 oughts, harkening back to a time when all was good, and the doomsday clock wasn't set at 11:55. As for specifics, Maria Baritromo gives a preview of the gossamer.

Citigroup to buy ABN Amro's mortgage unit (MarketWatch)
Is the smart money optimistic about housing? Citigroup (ahem, Citi) announced the purchase of ABN Amro's mortgage unit for $3 billion, which currently has 1.5 million customers in the US. Clearly, if the bank thought that there would be prolonged weakness in housing and lending, then it wouldn't be dropping this kind of money to expand its housing activities. Meanwhile, look across the Atlantic. Housing prices are surging again, and many have said that the UK housing market is like 18 months ahead of ours. Maybe when the stock market deflates that liquidity will pour back into housing and the virtuous cycle will continue.

Ford, Toyota See Alliance Potential (WSJ)
And the mating dance continues. Remember when GM was meeting with Carlos Ghosn? Nothing came of it, of course, but during the whole thing, Ford kept saying "hey guys, maybe we'd be interested in doing a deal". Nobody listened because Ford was never part of it -- they were just pretending to be. Now however, they may have their own deal to make GM envious. Word is that the laggard automaker is in talks with Toyota about... something. No real idea what any alliance would look like. Maybe they'll build a fuel cell together, or maybe they'll share excess capacity. Who knows -- for Ford shareholders, the key is that they're something -- anything -- and if it's with a lean Japanese maker, that's even better.

$$$"If you're DISTURBED ENOUGH to go out with me, I'll take ya." -- Well to do banker type. [Craigslist]

$$$"The Apprentice: What I Learned from Episode Two," by Trump employee, Paul C. Quintal [Trump University]

$$$A Hot New Way To Price Options. Settle down, Jobs, you don't want to pull a muscle. [Forbes]

$$$Relive it from the beginning: the WallStrip pilot! [WallStrip]

+CEO Seeks Hot Girlfriend

+What Happens When You Let the Help Pack Your Suitcase

+Mark Cuban: Suits are for Lemmings

+Communication Skills: Jobs 1, Gates 0

+Commerce: Don't Throw the Long-Hours Baby Out with the Decorating-Scandal Bath Water

+Jobs to Schwartz: Java is crap.

Because the world needs another financial website, Yahoo! introduced its “Personal Finance” site today. The site is fairly standard but trying way too hard, to the point where if all the financial sites were sitting in a room, Yahoo! Personal Finance would be sitting with its chair turned backwards. The best part of the site by far is entitled “Top 5 Questions & Answers,” where users ask silly questions and get sillier answers. Here, I do Yahoo! Personal Finance a favor and answer the site’s current Top 5 questions.

Q: If I have perfect credit & my mate has poor credit, and we get married, will my score automatically go down?
A: No. Although you will not be scoring any more, your current score stays fixed pending on whether you stay true to your vows. But your mate? Are you British or retarded (or a leopard seal)?

Q: What's the best answer in a job interview when they ask "What is your greatest weakness"?
A: Math, crippling laziness, rabies, in that order.

Q: How does an insurance company decide if they are going to total out a car?
A: The Oracle at Delphi, Automotive Corp

Q: Public school vs. Private school vs. Home school?
A: Date rape vs. sodomy vs. necrophilia

Q: What is the best way to buy a foreclosed house? Is there any secret to it?
A: Using the collective force of hyper-intelligent rats. Yes, of NIMH.

Yahoo Adds Personal Finance – [Red Herring]
Yahoo Personal Finance

Though we admit this to few and far between, if you must know, you’re reading a blog written by extremely self-absorbed, narcissistic people. We write the site so that we can then go back and read what we have to say, as opposed to having to read other people’s stuff. But recent personal events have caused us to turn over a new leaf, or, you know, at least half-heartedly try. So we’re starting a new feature wherein we turn the site over to you. Each Friday, we’ll be presenting you with a rundown of the best things you’ve had to say this week, meaning your best comments, as determined by us (we said half-heartedly). They’ll be broken down into four categories: Useful, entertaining, usefultaining and BS. Let’s begin.

Useful:
RE: Planespotting: Handicapable
Paul: he's lying--someone who's really injured knows that jameson's is better with morphine (and vice versa)

RE: Opening Bell: 1.16.07
Lee D: Hedge fund registration here is a pretty big non-event, since securities enforcement is really, really slack in the Great White North. The only people who ever get taken down are Financial Planners *cough* who commit outright theft. It takes a lot of plain old fraud to get the Provincial Authorities to sit up and take notice.
Al Rosen's columns are nice and vitriolic about the state of enforcement here:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/columnists/al_rosen/index.jsp

Entertaining:
RE: Extorted Exec Mystery Solved!
offfm: anonymous of 1/18...great blog! you got it all correct...I agree with you that Brooke, daughter of Barbie and step dad, Tracy, wrote with integrity and respect and Nikki, daughter of Dana/Zana & Gary is disrespectful and potty-mouth...check out the comment of 12/18 probably from Dana/Zana calling Barbie a slut, when she is sleeping around with a married doctor and Gary is picking up young girls as old as his daughters..who's a slut?? look in the mirror... the only person who would call Barbie a slut would be Dana/Zana..

Usefultaining:
RE: Shorter DealBreaker
Don’t Mess With John Carney: Carney, I'm going to hunt down the guy (or gal) who did this to you and teach him (or her) a lesson he'll (or she'll) never forget:
http://wordhumper.blogspot.com/2007/01/wordhumper-exclusive.html

BS:
RE: By Request: The Legendary Farewell Letter
Anonymous: Bess, if Elizabeth keeps posting gems like this, I might develop a massive crush on her and let her supplant you in my heart.

If you read this site (and what you're doing right now implies that you do), you know we like to treat you to a bit of Howard Lindzon's WallStrip, starring Lindsay Campbell, every now and then. It's entertaining, informative, and, of course, good filler. But today's BusinessWeek feature on the show's enormous popularity confirms our long standing suspicion, and greatest reason for linking you to WS every now and then, as opposed to say, an article from the Journal: you're illiterate. (Also, you think Jim Cramer is a circus clown, but that's like saying you think the Jerry Springer show we have going on in our comments section is a bit sleazy, you know? It's already implied).

Stock Tips For Generation YouTube [BusinessWeek]

The Wharton Lauder Institute Class of 2007 facebook is out, so we’ve assembled our very own Lauder MBA All-Star Team. (The Lauder program is a 2-year joint MBA/MA that emphasizes linguistic and foreign studies) All the quotes are from student biographies.

Here are the starting 5, with reserves:

Himanshu Bahguna – Center – The “Biceps of Bhopal,” Himanshu "invented a Wall Climbing Robot” for use at sororities and on-site maintenance of chemical and nuclear plants. Now these robots will be put to use on Ben Wallace and Shaq, freeing up the Bahg-man for his patented 60° slam after taking off from 10-feet in front of the foul line. Also chants of ‘Gu-na will be done in perfect synchronization with the “Air-ball” chant.

Jed Brawley – Power Forward – Jed has "visited almost every state and national park" through the travels of his transient circus family. Jed “learned Spanish from his neighbors,” French from a small juniper titmouse, Tuvan throat singing from his colon, and !Kung from a metronome. Jed also rocked out IM sports and various duties at his frat house at UVA, making him the ideal candidate for pushing around dumb jocks in the paint.

Joe El Rady – Point Guard – If Joe can escape the Lebanese Civil War (which he did as a child), certainly he can escape the suffocating defense of Bruce Bowen, which has been likened only to minor secretarian violence amongst warring tribes.

Ernest Hartner – Guard – Ernest is proud of the fact that he’s from “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the city of three rivers and home to more bridges than any other city in the Americas.” I have no idea why that is relevant information in a personal biography, but Ernie will need to forge these connective inroads to his teammates, distributing the rock.

Stephen Tapley – Guard – On Tapley’s Mormon “Go Out and Find Your First Wife Mission,” he found a *Brazilian* wife, which he gratuitously emphasizes in his biography. With this *Brazilian* wife, “Stephen’s attitudes and perceptions of international issues were challenged and enhanced,” primarily through advanced hair-removal techniques and outfits consisting of nothing but dental floss and coconut shells. Stephen also takes time to “mentor young men as a leader in the Boy Scouts of America.” We need more US players who can “handle” South Americans like Manu Ginobli and Francisco Oberto, and "young men" like Lebron, so Tapley gets the starting nod.

Katerina Cai – Secret Weapon – having spent over 6 years at Hewlett Packard, Katerina is fully equipped to “discover” the schemes of opposing teams. Kat is currently working on the rhomboidal offense, which she thinks is at least 180° better than Phil Jackson’s triangle offense.


Wilson S. Li Youn Hing – 6th Man – Although he ranked “first in the national exam of his country,” which is perhaps the most ambiguously awesome (salightly Vayner-esque) thing you can say about yourself, Wilson will have to settle for playing time as the 6th man.


Felix Okobi – Thug – Okobi, who “still found the time to captain his hostel’s table tennis team” while…apparently staying in some hostel, probably won’t dress much. Okobi will be come off the bench solely for intimidation purposes, because that’s what it takes to be dominant in the fierce world of youth hostel table tennis.

U-Tee Cheah – Towel Boy – Cheah worked for Aristos Logic, spun off from Western Digital, where he “recognized the inherent inefficiencies of the then-current methodology and created an entirely new debugging paradigm for the company, allowing bugs to be identified, and fixed orders of magnitude faster than before.” Right. Ok, so Cheah’s basically getting the nod as Towel Boy because of his cool name, and so he can find moisture absorption solutions and floor-to-towel placement strategies that can create a whole new drying paradigm for the MBA, allowing Dihydrogen Monoxide to be removed from surfaces orders of magnitude faster than before.

A former Permal analyst, Clemente Cappello, has launched the Sturgeon Fund, based in the Cayman Islands. It invests primarily in fixed income and equities in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The fund hedges on oil prices while holding equities because of the local economies’ dependence on the oil. “We’re very bullish on the fact that there are a lot of market changes going on in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and we really think that the liquidity is going to increase,” said Cappello. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Golden Globe win will no doubt be a boon to this month’s earnings, as will the upcoming DVD release.

Former Permal Analyst Launches Central Asia Fund [FINalternatives]

Now that the weekend is (almost) here, you can retire to your apartment and play World of Warcraft (WoW) for 60 straight hours – we won’t tell. The MMORPG released its WoW “Burning Crusade” expansion pack this week (and no, unfortunately the Burning Crusade was not for many of WoW’s players to go out and get laid), causing a frenzy as players rushed to get their hands on a variety of limited edition release packs at special “release parties” (damn, I haven’t been invited to a “release party” since the Last Chance Dance senior year of college).

The expansion pack raises the current WoW level cap to 70 and creates a few new character races and instances. Now that you can reach level 70, you can finally solo Onyxia, daughter of Neltharion the Earthwarder (also known as Deathwing the Destroyer) and sister of Nefarian in Dustwallow Marsh as a Paladin (I got that from Wikipedia, I swear). Whoever says paladins can’t tank is a n00b! Or you could go outside.

WoW is released by Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Vivendi Games under the Vivendi corporate umbrella. WoW has been a huge revenue generator for Vivendi, with over 8 million players worldwide shelling out $20 bucks a month to play. Vivendi’s stock price is up over 7% so far YTD and is trading at 99% of its 52-wk high.

Top Online Game Gets an Overhaul – [WSJ]

Dakota Fanning’s well-documented love affair with Wall Street may be officially over, and there’s no point in dancing around why. The young actress, who was previously known to spend inordinate amounts of time “just chilling” (her words) on the Street, who’s rung the bell a record four times in the last three years, and who personally took credit in a post on her MySpace page for the Dow’s all-time highs this December is pissed over what she sees as a direct attack by “someone she considered a close friend and confidant”: Wall Street’s heavy investment in agricultural commodities, namely, livestock futures.

A study by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission] found the Wall Street funds control a fifth to a half of the futures contracts for commodities like corn, wheat and live cattle on Chicago, Kansas City and New York exchanges. On the Chicago exchanges, for example, the funds make up 47 percent of long-term contracts for live hog futures, 40 percent in wheat, 36 percent in live cattle and 21 percent in corn.

“These are jaw-dropping numbers,” said Dan Basse, president of AgResources, an agricultural research firm in Chicago. “We have seen this explosion of open interest in agricultural commodity trading, and now we know it is largely related to the commodity index funds.”

The market leaders are Goldman Sachs, with its Goldman Sachs commodities index, estimated to be about $60 billion at the end of 2005, and the Dow Jones-AIG commodity index, estimated at $30 billion to $40 billion. About 20 percent of the Goldman Sachs index, which has a heavy emphasis in energy, is weighted in agriculture and livestock commodities. About 40 percent of the Dow Jones-AIG index is in agriculture and livestock.

Wall Street Is Betting on the Farm [NYTimes]

The corporate naming frenzy is in full gear with the rush of new stadiums emerging in New York. The Brooklyn Nets will soon be playing in Not Charles Barclay’s Arena, while the Mets will play in Citi Field starting in 2009. Corporate naming rights are proving to be big business – with the better part of $1bn going out the door for just two New York franchises. The Giants and the Jets are next on the list, and looking to cash in by hiring Wasserman Media Group as resident corporate sponsor fluffer.

The potential stadium names and corporate suitors include:

iStadium – Apple
Disputably Legal Resemblance to iStadium Arena – Microsoft
We Can See You Field – HP
Slightly Bigger than Citi Field DimonDome – JPMorgan
AH-64D Apache Longbow Park – Boeing
OurSpace – News Corp
Chromium VI Holding Bed #6425-5A – PG&E
What Happens Here Is Thankfully More Competitive Than Our Recent Contracts Stadium – Halliburton
Softballs NerfCenter - Hasbro

What’s In a Name? $400 Million - [DealBook]

+3.2% rise in 4Q operating profit
+Earnings from NY operations: up to $5.13 billion ($1.03/share), from last year’s $4.97 billion (98 cents/share)
+Net income down 26% to $5.13 billion ($1.03/share), from last year’s $6.93 billion ($1.37/share)
+Revenue up 15% to $23.83 billion
+Expenses up 23% to $13.96 billion (due to “increased business, acquisitions, investment spending and the effect of a year-earlier release of legal reserves”).
+ Finished the day with lunch money intact, though the same cannot be said for its pride, which was stuffed in a locker by Jamie Dimon and co.

Citigroup Operating Profit Up 3 Pct [Reuters via NYTimes]

Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers laid off nine and six specialists, respectively, yesterday, as part of its shift from human to electronic trading. Lehman also laid of the entirety of its Direct Market Access staff; Goldman plans to shutter its Direct Access division by March. Lehman confirmed the news but had nothing else to comment (though, presumably, that the erstwhile colleagues ought not to let the door hit them on the way out). Goldman, typically known for being the more charitable organization, confirmed the moves and offered “We hear Starbucks gives all its employees health insurance—even for P/T! Not dental, though...but beggers can't really be choosers, are we right?”

BLOOD ON THE STREET: FLOOR TRADERS AXED [NYPost]

Motorola Profit Slumps 48% as Competition Hurts Phone Prices (Bloomberg)
Add another name to the list of tech heavyweights turning in godawful earnings figures for the quarter. Handset maker Motorola saw its profits drop precipitously, as a price war helped to devour its earnings. Also, the company was a one hit wonder. There was hopes that it could follow up its highly successful RAZR with other "design-ey" phones, like the KRZR, SLVR, ROKR, GRZR (a cow-inspired handset), and the RIZR (trademark negotiations between the company and rapper The RZA were intense, but ultimately ended better than Cisco and Apple's iPhone discussion), but none have really taken off. And if you've noticed, the RAZR ain't exactly the high-end thing it was just a couple years ago. In fact, they're fairly ugly, and glaringly cheap.

AT&T Plans ‘Unity’ Strategy for Free Calls (NYT)
AT&T is quickly trying to convince the public that a re-unified AT&T has a lot of value to offer consumers. For example, now any AT&T wireless customer will get a free call when they dial an AT&T landline. Sorry, but this has to be the lamest promotion ever. When was the last time you knowingly dialed an AT&T landline? Or, when was the last time you dialed into a landline period? Far from making one excited about the return of Ma Bell, it's sort of just a reminder how unexciting the whole thing is.

House Votes to Rescind Oil Drillers’ Tax Breaks (NYT)
Nothing screams "Democratic Party" louder than rescinding a tax break on big oil. And so it is, that early in the Democrats reign of terror (we jest), the house has done just that, rolling back some earlier bills that cut taxes for domestic oil companies. Oh, and guess what. With the extra money that the government will get in, a fund will be established for research into alternative energy. How thoroughly.... predictable.

High Prices Prod Developed World To Curb Oil Use (WSJ)
Yes Virginia, demand for oil is elastic. For the first time in years and years, the amount of oil consumed in a year was lower, in the developed world, than the amount consumed in the previous year. A declining demand picture just be playing a role in the slump in oil prices, for the most part is really difficult to explain. This is also the kind of thing that the mature OPEC countries (think Saudi) hate to see. They love high prices, as long as it doesn't have any kind of effect on consumption patterns. But the cash isn't worth it, if it gets Americans and Germans to start talking about conservation, nuclear power, electric cars and carpooling.

$$$ Foreign Exchange Rates for Australian Humans [Long or Short Capital]

$$$Me: Wall Street Executive Searching for his Petite Princess. You: You are 110lbs or 50kg or smaller. Size 0,1,2 and Shoe size 5,6,7,7 1/2 Only. Let's make something happen, people. [Craigslist]

$$$Celebrate Myself [Banker's Ball]

$$$Lindsay gets some tips from Stockpickr.com’s James Altucher. [WallStrip]

I like to think that I’m pretty well educated in the personal finance department. I opened a savings account a little while ago; I contribute to a 401k; and, for the most part, I drink only the cheapest of beers. Sure, I spend a bit extravagantly on shoes now and then, but what gal doesn’t ? (This is Carney, btw). So I’m not sure I really need Merrill Lynch’s services so much as maybe they need mine. But in case you’re not as well-endowed as me (still Carney here), give this a gander:

Merrill Lynch has plans to roll out a weekend financial educational session solely for women at some point during the year, according to Karen Klein, director of family wealth services. The firm has been running financial educational sessions, coined "boot camps," for the upcoming generation of ultra-high-net-worth clients for the last four years.

The boot camp idea stemmed from both client and wealth advisor requests for more educational offerings, which include a full composite of classes on how to handle an upcoming fortune. The spokeswoman noted that most clients are part of the workforce. The recent three-day session was held at Wharton, featuring Wharton professors and speakers from Irvine, Calif.-based IFS Advisors.

Merrill Plans Financial Boot Camp For Women [Dailyii.com]

Electing an economist for President of Ecuador has not exactly solved the country’s financial woes. The price of Ecuador’s 10% dollar bonds due 2030 has dropped almost 30% since the November election of President Rafael Correa. The bonds were introduced in 2000 as a result of Ecuador's last major default. Now, citing potential “inhibition to growth,” Ecuador’s finance minister Ricardo Patino has publicly stated that the country may not service its outstanding debt, prioritizing domestic social spending. Patino did not have the same luck with trying to shirk his Visa bill.

Ecuador, Calling Debt ‘Illegitimate,’ May Repay 40% - [Bloomberg]

Fed Chief Ben Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee today, "'If early and meaningful action is not taken, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened," in what was regarded as his "most forceful warning to date." When asked about the urgency of the situation, Bernanke offered, "The longer we wait, the more severe the more draconian, the more difficult the objectives are going to be. I think the right time to start was about ten years ago." Apparently, "I think we should all just shoot ourselves now" struck Bernanke as "a bit dour, even for this crowd."

Fed Chief Sends Warning on Budget [AP via NYTimes]

Coke's marketing and innovation chief (is that really a title?) is jumping ship, after only a year and a half at the "innovation" helm.

Sure it took Coke a while (70 years) to ditch its Norman Rockwell ads, but the Company was reinvigorated with its “New” formulation in the 80s. [Pause for effect and perhaps a slow bomb dropping sound] After that billion dollar debacle, the catchy “Do-do-do-do-do” (I counted the right number of “do’s,” just hum it in your head) jingle in the 90s polished the marketing track record. Ok, maybe not (and if you hummed it in your head without committing a violent crime, kudos). Hey, at least everyone likes cuddly extremely carnivorous penguin-eviscerating polar bears when they hand out carbonated beverages, right? Not so much? How about “starry-eyed surprised” spontaneous beachside roller skating parties consisting of people far too old not to have day-jobs? No…

Other than not disadvantaging quadruple amputees trying to count the number of quality Coke ads on available digits, the marketing team at Coke has demonstrated questionable competence in oh…the past century or so. We did like the Grand Theft Auto parody with the Bugsy Malone song, but other than that the past year or so hasn’t been an exception to Coke's marketing comedy.

Coke Marketing Chief to Leave - [WSJ]

The obsession with hedge funds (evidenced by hedge fund shoes, hedge fund shows, reports that investment banks have, obviously out of envy, morphed INTO hedge funds, and, lest we forget, hedge fund Do-It-Yourself guides) may be over, according to a new survey.*

The Spectrem Group report shows that nearly one-third of households with a net worth of $25 million or more ditched their hedge fund investments in 2006. While 38% of such households invested in hedge funds in 2005, only 27% did so last year. Households with net worths of $5 million or more investing in hedge funds dropped from 17% to 14%.

But what about the only quasi-rich?

The slightly-less affluent $10-million-to-$25-million person also cut his exposure, although only fractionally. In 2006, 18% of such households had hedge fund investments, compared to 19% in 2005.

And the poor? What about them, hmm? Are they still enamored with hedge funds? Apparently, yes.

The practically poverty-stricken $5-million-to-$10 million group actually saw their numbers in the hedge fund investor ranks grow, to 8% from 6%.

It’s like we always say—once the homeless (and a guy who thinks it’s cool to marry one's own daughter) buy into a trend, you know it’s time to cash out.

*one survey = enough for us here at the DB HQs

Ultra Rich Ditch Hedge Funds In ‘06 [FINalternatives]

Genius Jamie Dimon and those wizards at JPMorgan Bank One H&Q Chemical Chase Manhattan Bank want to add a few syllables to the Morgan moniker, bolstered by a 68% increase in Q4 awesomeness. Just as the ink on the last “synergy” plan from the Bank One merger is drying, banks like SunTrust and US Bancorp are emerging in speculative merger talk. Retail brokerages are also rumored to be in consideration, despite hefty current valuations. Dimon has been seen trying to decapitate the Bronze Bull on Broadway shrieking, “There can be only one!” Despite alarming many pedestrians, this is a far subtler challenge to an acquisition pissing contest than Stan O’Neal’s gratuitous substance acquisition abuse.

Chase Dealmakers on the Prowl? – [Forbes]

We missed you Patti. Plea bargains were offered to Patti Dunn (or apparently just Patricia, after her litigation makeover) and four others by the CA attorney general’s office. All Patti has to do is admit to some minor (misdemeanor) things, like blowing up the HP board room by spying on its members.

The CA attorney general’s office is not stopping there. Other pleas to Patti included in the agreement:

Please cut your bangs
Please stop freaking out every time someone says they’re going to take a leak
Please switch to Canon printers
Please get the man with a boom mic, large antennae and headphones out of the bush in my front yard
Please have the heart-shaped tattoo of “HP + PD 4-eva” on your lower back removed
Please take off that rubber glove, that’s not what “tap that ass” means

Dunn and Others Offered Pleas in Hewlett-Packard Case – [DealBook]

Do you know anything about investment banking? If you answered ‘yes,’ hold on to your seat, because today’s top story in Columbia’s The Eye, “Wall Street Indiscreet,” is going to blow you away. Writer Dan Haley interviewed the pseudonymous “Paul Owen,” a senior with plans to work on the Street after graduation and the results are pretty eye-opening. You should obviously check it out for yourself, but here are a few highlights:

Get the name right, chump.

I thought I was playing it cool by calling Owen’s industry “i-banking.” I thought I was showing Owen what an insider I was.
“No one in the investment banking industry calls it ‘i-banking,’” he snapped. “I mean, it’s not a fucking Apple accessory.”

The vast majority of you out there are not smart enough to go into I-banking. Those of you who attended state schools should probably just head down to Duane Reade and fill out an application now.

The majority of students who find employment in investment banks come from Ivy League-caliber schools. In the banking industry, these are referred to as “target” schools. Columbia is one. So is Cornell—but less so. Middlebury is not a target school. Don’t even think about Binghamton.

One way to get around not having the golden ticket to a job in I-banking (an Ivy-league degree) is to be really sweet at Sodoku.

“Investment banking isn’t this advanced math, these advanced quantitative techniques. There’s Excel for that,” he tells me. “Investment banking is really just critical thinking. They way I put it, if you’re good at Sudoku, you’ll be a good investment banker.”

When you get a job in I-banking, it doesn't matter if you were previously the biggest tool at school; the guy who always got picked last for gym, always got stuffed in his locker. You are now a certified badass.

With $145,000 in his pocket—projected earnings, it is not all actually in his pocket at the moment—Owen tells me that senior year has been “an absolute shitshow.”
“The best description of it I can give,” said Owen, “is that the third week of school I took Monday and Tuesday off from class to go to Puerto Rico.”

At first, it’ll be a lot of late hours and hard work, for sure. But once you pay your dues, it’ll be pussy, pussy, pussy.

“At first, as an analyst, you’re doing grunt work,” he said. “But then, as you go on, as you get to the vice president and managing director levels, it’s all about client relations. Expensive dinners, golf trips, schmoozing. I can’t say I would mind that at all.”

When you work in I-banking, you can, like, make people do shit for you.

“I was 21 and my secretary was about 15 years older,” Chan [who interned in Hong Kong last summer] said. “I could ask her to fax stuff for me, or get me coffee, or pens, or even ask her to bring me my bank account statement.”

If you work at a good enough firm, they’ll pay for your prostitutes.

Of course, it wasn’t all work in Hong Kong. On Friday and Saturday nights, with no work the next day, the bankers would cut loose. This meant hitting up one of the three big expatriate bars/clubs in the city. These clubs were usually filled with two groups of people: bankers and “models.” The “models” would get in without paying the cover charge and drink for free while the bankers would have to cough up $1,000 for a table, although sometimes the firm paid for them.

Wall Street Indiscreet [The Eye]

Because that’s what Daddy and his “hidden magic green card” are for. Now, the WSJ blog has resorted to writing posts that attempt to assuage the guilt of crappy loaded parents. This is also for people who just want a gratuitous post of a girl in a French Maid outfit to get through lunch at their desks. DealBreaker gives you an inch…

Something Else About Mary Poppins – [The Juggle]

Evidence is mounting that John Thain is a—and we don’t want to say liar, ‘cause that’s not the right word, but how about a—con man? Swindler? Used Car Saleman? Whatever you’re comfortable with. The case made by threeformer NYSE seatholders against the NYSE, who sold their seats in late 2005 for around $1.5 million each, claiming that Chief Executive John Thain did not inform them of appending merger with Archipelago, which caused seats to jump to $2.4 million, and a $4 million sale that December, was thrown a bone today, according to the Post.

"The folks at Wall and Broad don't get it. It would take one to two years to go public and we have no plans for that," Thain allegedly said, referring to a popular seatholder-only Web site then rife with speculation about the exchange's future.

Thain has said he has no recollection of the statement. But The Post has obtained sworn declarations from three attendees of the Feb. 15, 2005, meeting that support [seatholder] Richard Wey's claims.

Held at the NYSE in a swanky room numbered 630, the 10-person breakfast meeting was meant to be a chance for Thain to address concerns and questions about the NYSE from some of the exchange's most respected specialists and brokers.

In sworn testimony, Glenn Carell, a specialist at Bear Wagner Specialists, said that after Wey asked "[if] the NYSE was going public," Thain replied, "No. It would take at least one to two years or longer to go public and we have no plans for that."

Fishy (though that could just be an old piece of lox from the "swanky" breakfast). But not uncharacteristic of a man who has been known to harbor a secret or two in the past.

TRADERS BACK SUIT, CLAIM THAIN MISLED [NYPost]

Is anyone else a little freaked out over Charles Murray’s recent educational editorial series in the Journal?

Murray first points out what most kids who went to public school (maybe a shockingly low percentage of WSJ readers) already know – that most kids are pretty dim, or any more PC way of saying “dumber than bricks” (mildly autistic, ADD, ADHD, AAA, metaphorically deficient in luminosity). Fine, we’re with you there, Chuck, and you can add a buckeye to your American Enterprise Institute helmet.

The problem is when you actually read more than just the sub-heading of the first editorial, in which Chucky ventures into Ayn Rand-ville and starts musing about how dumb kids should be satisfied with manual labor and the special responsibility of the nation’s “gifted.” Granted, Charles doesn’t want all poor and/or stupid (for Chuck, just “and”) people to die in horrible industrial accidents, he just wants them to fix his toilet, which may be worse. After all, with regards to people who have social and economic problems, “the culprit for their educational deficit is often low intelligence.” Murray then goes on to pitch a rather small and crooked tent over the possibility of the top 15% (again, wealth and power for the most part magically equating with intelligence) continuing its dominance of business, art, politics and science.

Murray should just move to Vasectomy Housing in New Jersey and then he won’t have to worry about education or its cost. Of course, I am starting to think “moving to Vasectomy Housing” is a cooler and cooler euphemism for actually receiving one.

Murray's Editorial - Part I, Part II, Part III, [BONUS!] Part IV - [WSJ]

Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal’s alleged substance abuse problem (as alleged by myself yesterday) was validated this morning, when the bank reported a 68% swell in fourth quarter profits, resulting from record numbers in trading and underwriting stocks and bonds. Net income hit $2.35 billion ($2.41/share), up from last year’s $1.39 billion ($1.41/share). According to Bloomberg, O’Neal's "17 acquisitions in the past three years, bigger trading bets and leveraged buyouts pushed full-year revenue above the record set during the technology stocks boom in 2000.” Earnings were high enough to beat out Morgan Stanley, though not Goldman Sachs, which has got to sting. Expect some sort of a cry for help on O’Neal's part in the form of 8 new acquisitions next month.

Merrill Profit Rises 68% on Trading, Private Equity [Bloomberg]