1) Ex-SAC Trader Convicted of Securities Fraud (Dealbook) - With this conviction, Preet Bharara is now 79-0 against Wall Street. If I were Stevie Cohen I'd be looking to take my show on the road most ricky-fucking-tick.
2) How A Duke Undergrad With No Finance Background Got Lured By Goldman Sachs (Business Insider) - This is a pretty cool piece written by a young woman who is probably very typical: got into a decent school without knowing where she wanted to go in life, and then got seduced by the promise of an early pay-off in banking. I have to believe that people like that make up the majority of applicants these days.
3) No jail for 'affluenza' teen in fatal crash draws outrage (USA Today) - Pretty egregious case of entitlement run amok, but you can't blame the kid. He's just doing what anyone would do in his position: whatever he has to in order to get off. I think it's pretty safe to call this a miscarriage of justice, though. If we start letting rich kids get away with killing people because they're too spoiled to know it's wrong, that's a very dark place to tread.
4) Sao Paulo Biggest Water-Supply System May Run Dry Within 45 Days (Bloomberg) - I'm not sure why this isn't bigger news. Imagine a city the size of Sao Paulo running out of water. Well, we won't have to imagine it if what some scientists say is true. We're likely to see it more and more. Might be time to buy some water futures.
5) Indie smash hit 'Flappy Bird' racks up $50K per day in ad revenue (The Verge) - Is this game really as maddening as everyone says it is? I just think it's totally cool that some random guy in his underwear in Vietnam is pulling down 50 G's a day and causing a ton of controversy with a silly game. Fair play to him.
6) Friendster Founder Tells His Side of the Story, 10 Years After Facebook (Mashable) - File this one under, "What ever happened to...". Social media is a cutthroat world ruled by gangsters like Zuckerberg with an iron fist.
7) SON, IT’S TIME WE TALK ABOUT WHERE START-UPS COME FROM. (McSweeney's) - I love this developing meme of guys my age lecturing young people about how ethereal their success is bound to be if they play the start-up game. Don't listen to 'em. Get out there and make a dent in the universe.
8) Controversy Surrounds Lunch Menu at Concord High School (NBC Bay Area) - OMFG, are you kidding me? A lunch menu of fried chicken, cornbread, and watermelon to commemorate Black History Month? What's for desert? A pack of Kools?
9) The Benefits of Using Solid Cologne (Men's Journal) - You smell bad. You know it, I know it, the little kids in the street know it. Maybe it's time you stepped up your game for everyone's sake.
10) 'Get your flabby body moving, meatbag!': The sadistic app that SHAMES you into losing weight (Daily Mail) - I predict surly, antagonistic apps will be the next big trend. This one reminds you that you're a worthless food blister all day long. Now if someone could just develop an app that delivers a shock every time an idiot opens his mouth.
Video of the Week:
It's no secret what I think of the War on Drugs (or any other war on personal liberty, for that matter), but this was a banner week for the people who agree with me. Not only was the administration forced to admit that marijuana is safer than alcohol or prescription drugs, we got to watch drug czar Michael Botticelli get absolutely eviscerated on live TV for refusing to cop to the fact that co***ne and meth are more dangerous than pot. Rep. Earl Blumenauer summed it up perfectly: your propaganda cannot be taken seriously, not even by a child. Enjoy:
That's it for this week, stallions. Have a fantastic weekend and let me know what you think about this week's Bananas in the comments!
The pic of Stevie in article 1) makes him look like an egg.
4) Don't buy your futures just yet. Sao Paulo is in the southern hemisphere which means they're in the middle of summer at the moment. This "drought" just means that the rainy season is taking a couple of weeks longer than usual to start. If the water supply does dwindle before the rains come, Sao Paulo is just gonna have to transport water from other regions. Everyone in the capital is aware of it and nobody is even remotely worried.
8) That's actually really funny.
I think you're understating the severity of the drought here, Sling Shot. The rainy season was off to a fine start in November, but we just finished January with the hottest and driest month in the history of the city. The utility companies are now offering discounts if you cut down on water consumption, and there are signs all over the city to conserve water consumption. Could rainy season start back up in February? Sure, but if not, it will be dry season before long, and the city will have to figure a way to get by the next 6 months without significant rainfall.
And "just transport water from other regions"?? One, the whole country is experiencing a drought. And two, based on the quality of logistics here in South America, I wouldn't count on anything getting transported anywhere in a timely fashion.
I´m sorry man, but you couldn´t be more wrong. I work at a Water Supply and Wastewater treatment company (in São Paulo) and the situation is the worst in hystory. Sao Paulo has 19 million people and we have 10% of the water availability recommended by the UN (gallons/hab/year). We already bring water from another State (Minas Gerais) and there is no easy or quick alternative. Sure, we can bring water from somewhere else, but it would take at least 5 years and cost billions. We are talking about distances of 150 miles of more!
Every day, at least 4 or 5 desperate clients call me , trying to figure out what to do. These are the Industrial Managers and CEOs of big companies that need water to exist.
The article in Bloomberg is actuallly pretty accurate.
2) If I hear/read another thing about an Ivy student or equivalent not feeling "fulfilled" by having the prospect of working for GS/MS/McK available to them - I'm legit gonna have an existential crisis.
This girl is a complete tool trying to build a brand for herself by criticizing Wall Street, using her prestigious alma mater as a way to capitalize on the 'anti-Wall Street' theme and hustle her book on Amazon.
She probably has a chip on her shoulder from something - maybe not getting a FT offer - who knows. You don't HAVE to work in finance, but trying to profit monetarily over criticizing jobs that help students get out of debt is pretty low class, especially given she said almost 0 of substance in her passages that were quoted. NO ONE at Duke, Penn, Yale, or any of the nerdy targets has people being forced to apply for banking or trading. In fact, no one cares if you apply or not - there is more than enough demand for limited supply.
She's lucky she could 'find herself' while in college, and have parents pay for her undergrad and high five her for 'sticking it to the man' by not working in investment banking (lol). But some people have different financial incentives, or !!!GASP!!! are actually interested in finance from an intellectual perspective, and use banking and trading entry-level jobs as a way to gain a skill set that will help them for the rest of their careers.
No one forced her to interview for these banking jobs. She didn't even receive an offer for an internship from Goldman...she never actually worked in finance if I am reading it correctly? Or did she intern? So how would she even know how the work is full-time?
Further, she works in freaking management consulting - I don't know which one, but if its MBB then I don't really think shes exactly saving the world. I worked in MBB as well, and think its a joke that someone would consider management consulting any more praiseworthy than banking/trading.
Ooooo kill em. That's what I was thinking but wasn't erudite or funny enough to type
Exactly my thought. Was pretty astounded when I got to the bottom of the article to find that a management consultant, of all people, had written such a sanctimonious diatribe about greed, the "rat race," and the overall chase for prestige on top college campuses. Nothing against consultants, but I gotta say, you'd think she'd recognize that bankers and consultants are cut from pretty similar cloth.
Overall, I'm really sick of college kids in my generation decrying firms that offer them some of the best entry-level opportunities in the country, especially at a time when unemployment among college graduates in both the U.S. and abroad is frighteningly high. If you don't like the lifestyle, the hours, or the subject matter, feel free not to apply, but please don't write a column or a book to justify your decision to eschew a great learning experience. Watching "Inside Job," reading "The Big Short," or dealing with a douchebag interviewer doesn't automatically endow you with some higher knowledge about the world of finance, and it certainly doesn't qualify you to throw blanket criticisms at a vast industry you've never worked in.
+1, couldn't have said it better.
What's funny is how the article describes how she got over finance (she's better than it of sorts, looks down on it) and moved to management consulting (THE SALVATION!) hahaha. What's next? Rediscovering yourself whilst in big law? Oh yeah, loved how among the lines she advertised her uni of being THE super-target.
Also, a culture that does not believe in the concept of central air conditioning + 5 straight weeks of highs in the 90s actually makes me a little envious of all the snow and cold back home. Ok not really, but this isn't fun either.
I agree, I've always been "extreme heat" adverse. If you don't have A/C, there is really no way to escape it; at least if it's cold out, you can just bundle up or turn up the heat.
Eddie, That video is nothing compared to the video where I think the drug czar said that Oxy is almost exactly the same as heroin but heroin is way cheaper. It was hilarious because he never once mentioned that heroin is dangerous as hell, if you just listen to the audio it sounds like the guy is advertising for heroin.
5 - yes, it's maddening. It took half an hour of play to get a score above 20
3 - Let them eat cake? Guess what happens next. Don't say I didn't warn y'all.
1 - What are the chances Preet will take up a prophylactic agenda? I mean, convicting bad guys is great and all, but why not get ahead of problems? It's kind of my major bone to pick with American culture: we let things fester until they become a 'major issue'.
On another note. Morons like Mike Botticelli aside, you think anyone really had to twist the arm of the first Actually black president to look the other way while the states start to legalize weed? I have to agree with Bill Maher, it should have been the war on ....some drugs. Coke, heroine, meth....these things are extremely addictive and rob people of their free will to a large extent. Booze, caffeine, even nicotene can be pretty hard to quit, but I really have never heard of someone sucking dick for cup of coffee. My only question is how the gov't and big pharma fooled the public so long. In a country snookered by the 2003 WMD Iraq thing, I can see it, but we're talking almost a century of bad policy. WTF America? Are you THAT dumb?
Have considered it on workdays with particularly bad hangovers.
big unit for the kill shot. +1 dude.
Really sad part is that the "heroine epidemic" isn't new. As oxy and others become harder to get, people that are already addicted to opiates have to turn to the street to get their fix. The year before I decided to work in finance, I got a serious injury and was put on painkillers. I remember asking the doctor "is this how the downward spiral begins?". "Yes," he said, "and I'll cut you off before it becomes a habit". A lot of other people haven't been so lucky. This problem was created by big pharma. There's your free market at work. Bling bling. If there was ever a time to advocate detox and rehab over jail time, this is it. We're talking several million people who never broke the law....until the system changed. America, wake the fuck up.
Can someone please invent a Willy Wonka cologne, ie one that never wears off? Then I can always be smelling great and don't have to shower.
@Saltwaterfish @onemanwolfpack Well apparently I'm completely wrong, thanks guys. I have a friend who's in Copacabana now who's been feeding me some bad info. He's on vaca though, which probably means he's sheltered from the actual realities.
79-0. Damn.
This guy would be president if he was born here.
it's pretty funny how they report it like a game I'm surprised they don't calculate the total years he's put people in jail, or how much he's won for the govt in fines
This argument about Marijuana being safer than alcohol because it kills less people is baseless in my opinion.
How can you compare something that is lawful and so widely widespread (alcohol) with a forbiden drug (ok that tend to be more and more widespread as well, but not for THAT long, wait until we see the consequences of high Marijuana intake in 20 or 30years) ? I am not for or against drugs but this kind of argument isn't helping advocates of ending the war on drugs as it's almost dishonest.
Baseless how?
Pretty sure there is science proving that alcohol is more biologically detrimental than weed.
Baseless because you can't compare the number or death related to weed and alcohol when there is so much more people taking alcohol than people taking marijuana.It isn't a good way to tell which one is more deadly as the parallel is biased from the start. That's all I am saying, I am not implying that one is more deadly that another as honestly I don't know, but this comparison doesn't make sense.
Beer has lots of calories...gotta watch my belly. I think grass is basically zero cal.
I will look up some of the stuff I have on marijuana, but THC is not the only active ingredient. Many of the active ingredients have positive benefits to the brain. One of the highest levels of active ingredients in non THC focused marijuana is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain that is used to counter act dopamine spikes. This chemical can be used to treat side effect of prolonged opiate or meth use.
I thought that Blumenauer was going to bring up edibles at one point. Last year, a kid got expelled because he gave his teacher a weed brownie haha
That kind of thing is gonna happen if you don't bring enough for the whole class.
@pinkclouds for real. I would love to have a chance with GS et al.
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