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Bonus Bananas August 31, 2012
 

Edmundo Braverman's picture
ST
(Human, 14,318
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 7:30am
weeds.jpg

1) Derek Peterson, Terra Tech Founder, Ditched Wall Street For Marijuana Business (Huffington Post) - This is something right out of Breaking Bad. Derek Peterson started a side business making mobile hydroponic labs while at Morgan Stanley. MS found out and promptly fired him. So now he's doing it full time. Awesome.

2) Small Banks Get Theirs Too: Treasury’s Quiet Bailout (ProPublica) - Another back-door bailout in full swing. The Treasury is trying to unload its TARP stakes in the smaller banks, and the banks themselves are buying back the debt at a discount. Such a deal!

3) Offbeatr Wants To Be The Kickstarter For XXX Startups (ReadWriteWeb) - First of all, props to whomever came up with the name. Offbeatr cracks me up. Have you been wanting to invest in a porn project but didn't know where to look? Your problem is solved.

4) What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day (Fast Company) - This is a great list, and I really wish I were more disciplined about this stuff. I'm the biggest offender of checking emails first thing in the morning. Not sure what I expect to find there that's so important.

5) The Science of Badass: How Nasty Gal Avoided Ecommerce Gimmicks and Silicon Beach to Bank $40m and a New Line (Pando Daily) - If I had a daughter, I'd make her read this at least five times. Not that it only applies to women; far from it. This is about a 27-year old who bootstrapped a company with her own cash and grew it to $130+ million in revenues this year. Great success story.

6) Understanding the Dangers of “Ego-Depletion” (Four Hour Work Week) - Interesting article about the factors which cause you to make bad decisions.

7) Hilarious Amazon Reviewers Take on Bic’s Stupid, Sexist ‘For Her’ Women’s Pens (Gawker) - You gotta love the Internet. Never before have consumers had so much power to call a company out when it does something stupid. Some of these reviews are hilarious.

8) Colleges Ship Freshmen To Paris To Boost Tuition Coffers (Bloomberg) - Okay, this is funny. Imagine being a high school senior and getting accepted to NYU. Great, right? But what's this fine print? I have to spend my freshman year in France? I don't even speak French!

9) Beggar had a million-dollar photo collection - and his death is a mystery (NY Post) - Every so often you see a story about some eccentric millionaire who chose to live among the homeless. That's not exactly the case here, but pretty close. And this poor guy may have even been murdered when someone found out what he was worth.

10) The 5 Most Ridiculous Drinking Myths You Probably Believe (Cracked) - There's no such thing as a beer gut? Au contraire, mon frere.

Video of the Week:
I've long been fascinated by the different ways people react and cope when horrible stuff happens to them out of the blue. What do you do when you're just going about your business and life decides to take a huge shit on you? The following trailer is the true story of a family on vacation in 2004 when the tsunami hit. The actual tsunami scene is nothing short of terrifying, and the story of how the family gets back together looks awesome. I'm definitely going to be checking this one out when it hits the theaters:

That's it for this week, guys. We're staring down the barrel of a long weekend, and it's back to business after that. Make the most of the time off and be safe. Have a tremendous weekend.

Tags:

Comments

happypantsmcgee's picture

8) Has been going on for

O
(Almost Human, 9,621
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 8:56am

8) Has been going on for awhile. A girl I knew in high school transferred to NYU and they required her to live her first year in Milan or some shit. Never understood why anyone would agree to that but I guess if it gets you to NYU eventually its worth it?

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford

All American Reject's picture

To #4, I was trying to avoid

CF
(Baboon, 105
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 9:10am

To #4, I was trying to avoid WSO for this very reason after completely failing the morning by checking email. And then I remembered Bonus Bananas, so I failed that test also. Thanks.

BigSwingingDave's picture

#8 I love how so many of

 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 9:31am

#8
I love how so many of these "non-profit" institutions are all about making as big of a profit (or at least revenue) as they can. I thinks this is part of the problem with the rising cost of tuition across the board, nobody at any private or public colleges has an incentive to cut costs, just to get bigger. Then the only for profit colleges have a business model that consists of convincing stupid people to take on debt for a worthless degree.

UFOinsider's picture

#8 WTF? It's just school, we

O
(Human, 10,300
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 9:49am

#8 WTF? It's just school, we go to learn and/or get a job. Since when has it become all this other stuff, and do they really think that turning their students into indentured debt servants won't have some kind of blowback???

YOU JUST GOT TROLLED
http://www.troll.me/images/red-foreman322/dont-you...

KozzAndEffect's picture

#4 forgot "Drink Heavily".

(Monkey, 30
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 10:46am

#4 forgot "Drink Heavily".

goon's picture

hahaha edmund braveheart you

(Chimp, 6
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 12:46pm

hahaha edmund braveheart you are a loser...why do you post such stupid tripe?

happypantsmcgee's picture

goon: hahaha edmund

O
(Almost Human, 9,621
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 12:51pm
goon:

hahaha edmund braveheart you are a loser...why do you post such stupid tripe?

Yea...you'll do well here.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford

mperit01's picture

2) keep in mind that most of

ER
 
Points)
 on 8/31/12 at 2:23pm

2) keep in mind that most of these banks have been paying preferred dividends on TARP since the programs inception (5% for first 5 years, 9% every year after), so the government is still making a profit on the TARP program overall despite the auction at a discount. Also, most of these smaller banks still don't have the excess capital (especially if you consider the Basel III NPR) to even put forth a bid on their TARP (you need approval from your regulator before you can bid), so it ends up getting bought by other investors. The main idea behind the auction is the fed desperately wants to put an end to the TARP program and get it off their balance sheet, and it is trying to expedite the process through these auctions. Some stats to support my point:

Treasury invested $204.9B in 707 banks as of June and received $216.7B in repayments
and income (inclusive of dividends, interest, warrant income, and other income). The more specific break down is repayments totaling $191B, earned income of $26B from dividends, interest, and warrant dispositions, and posted losses of $2.8B. Treasury is still making out okay all things considered, and the closing of this program is probably for the best.

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