Bonus Bananas October 25, 2013
1) Wall Street banks learn how to survive in staged cyber attack (Reuters) - Remember Quantum Dawn 2? Well Wall Street kicked its ass, because Murica.
2) How young bankers really live in 2013 (eFinancial Careers) - It seems like 2005 was just yesterday, when you could still see ops mongoloids pulling up to 1Oak in a rented Porsche on a Thursday night. Those days are clearly over. Now the banker life sounds like something out a Dickens novel.
3) Paulson Gold Fund Down 62% Through Sept. (FIN Alternatives) - It's hard out there for a pimp.
4) Silicon Valley's 'Ultimate Exit': secession from the United States (The Verge) - This is some douche level 1000 shit right here. They say pride goeth before a fall, and there are going to be some very entertaining falls from grace when the bubble bursts.
5) This Asshole Misses the Shutdown (Valley Wag) - Guys like this make it too easy. What a dick.
6) Level Money Wants To Be Mint For Millennials (Fast Company) - Want a personal finance manager that understands you better than Mint? Here it is. I'm actually kinda shocked Mint isn't more flexible when it comes to this kind of stuff.
7) Five Best Language Learning Tools (LifeHacker) - We cover this a lot on WSO and for good reason. Learning another language opens the whole world to you. Here are some of the best ways to learn a new language (with the possible exception of Pimsleur, which really hasn't kept pace with the others IMHO). I'm particularly enamored with DuoLingo. That site is the cat's ass.
8) What’s Your Excuse? “Fit Mom” Jumps On The Fat-Shaming Bandwagon (Hello Giggles) - I don't get why this chick is getting all the hate. I happen to love her message and I think she's got a rockin' bod (despite the irreparable damage she did to her undercarriage pushing out a litter of rotten kids) and should be proud of her hard work. The fatties hating on her should STFU and get to the gym.
9) This Guy’s Wife Got Cancer, So He Did Something Unforgettable. The Last 3 Photos Destroyed Me. (ViralNova) - This is brutal. I don't often post things that are this big a downer, but this is a true testament to love (if you believe in that sort of thing) and I think it's worth your time.
10) Substitute Teacher Passes Out in Classroom After Using Heroin (Gawker) - To be fair, it was an art teacher. But who the hell spikes heroin at 6 am? I mean, seriously, how bad is it to be a substitute art teacher that you have to chase the dragon just to muster the strength to face those little shitheels?
Video of the Week:
The following video made my whole week. I only wish my friends were this cool. Can you imagine an installation like this right before Super Bowl Sunday? Epic.
That's it for this week, primates. Hope you have a glorious weekend, and let me know what you think of this week's Bananas in the comments!
9, wow. I'm going home to see my wife. Work isn't important.
9, Damn. Who's cutting onions over here.
Surprised you didn't include the link of that parent who filed a bullying complaint against the football team who beat their kid's team 91-0. I'm sure whoever filed that is in favor of his/her kid receiving a participation medal.
Also, in the spirit of Halloween & a follow up to that video you tweeted of Tesla coil playing AwolNation's SAIL...
//www.youtube.com/embed/6t5mJNeD8hs
double post
7 is really useful, thanks! too bad duolingo doesn't have russian though
also aussies are funny
Re #10; Did you hear about the TA in Iowa? Thought she was emailing her Pre-Calc class the answers to their homework... turned out to be nudies haha.
I did hear about that, and as tantalizing as the premise would lead to you believe, I saw the pics and they were pretty disappointing (unless you're into Asian dudes).
Well, teacher for Calc, could've guessed. And yeah, funny mistake, but apparently they're still teaching there which surprised me.
I decided against the failure of a father filing the bullying complaint because his kid's football team got their asses handed to them because 1) everybody knows about it by now, and 2) it's already been resolved and the country's in agreement that the dad's an asshat.
4 - Ignorant and smug to the nth power. Seriously, some version of your #2 is going to happen to the hoodies-and-burritos crowd. It's just going to happen. And it's going to be fantastic.
RE 4 & 5 - one of the downsides of working a lot is that you tend to lose perspective. I have to agree with you; this is some silly overentitled bullshit. Hard work and being smart pays off, but if anyone ever thinks they aren't benefitting from the larger system that they use as a platform to run their business, they're mistaken. Eddie, I know you disagree, but it's the reason why I opposed people giving up their citizenship to avoid taxes: I'm sure it's great to be that guy, but the rest of us have to pick up the tab.
Re 9 - I lost family to cancer and I'm forwarding this to everyone. Cancer sucks. It's a bit of a downer, but it's also a good reminder of what really matters.
RE - 8 totally agree! Why the hell should my health insurance be more expensive because 60% of the country are fat and lazy, while I'm in the gym every morning? Either gov't tax or higher health insurance rates should be assigned to people who abuse their health. Personal choice is one thing, but again, the rest of us are left holding the tab.
Eddie,
I was going to comment about the other posts but I'd rather comment about number 9 instead. Maybe it's because I'm dead on the inside (or because I've seen Death first hand when trying to save a life and have have become numb to it at this point) but that piece would have been profound to me. I think it helps humanize the face of Cancer and it's something that needs to be humanized. It's a sad story but it is something that happens more often than we think yet it is nice to see someone trying to show the world what the personal journy of a loved one suffering from this is like. Death is never an easy thing to share or be open about and I really applaud this guy for showing the value of human life. I think that the hardest images, for me at least, were the shots of the Chemo Treatment - it's absolutely brutal on the body, aging it in ways that no one expects to see. This is why I feel most for Oncologists; they treat patients they know have a high likelihood of dying and have to erect such massive barriers around themselves to handle the emotional detachment they need to have to treat their patients. Cancer really is an awful disease.
Fantastic find Eddie. It's much appreciated despite being a tear jerker.
Damn. Told myself I wasn't going to check 9, but I did. Nothing to add that hasn't already been said by UFO and Frieds.
On to happier thoughts, hey Paulson, my Roth 401(k) is up 14% YTD. In your risk-adjusted face, beeotch.
2 is a fucking fact. Coming from a non NYC location to NYC is insane. I'm a few years in and at ~100k base and living along there is still a fucking abortion of a hassle/price tag.
The truth is, it's always been like that.
The financial crisis exposed the assholes who blew all their money, and that's why they were the unlucky 10% shaved off the bottom of each firm. People in banking today are just smarter with their money than they were in 2005, and people (non-bankers) actually think it's because they make less of it.
Move to Atlanta; the price to rent rates are ridiculously low. I have seen 3-4 bedroom houses selling for under 50k in College Park (south of the city). In Buckhead the housing is significantly more costly than College Park, but it is still a LOT cheaper than South FL (Beach) or NY real estate.
@"happypantsmcgee" I thought you were a JAG. Did someone take your name on JD Oasis before you could reserve it?
8. I have weight issues myself, but I have no issues with what this woman did. This is what is wrong with America these days - achievements are frowned upon.
Nothing about the NSA snooping on the Frenchies?
The French are pretty pissed about it, make no mistake.
5 - I'm actually a bit surprised at your take on this one Eddie. Maybe it's a bit blunt and oversimplified, but the gist of what he's saying is true. The shutdown really didn't matter -- everyone knew it was just a stupid political stunt and its economic effects were virtually nil.
And on a grander scale beyond just the recent shutdown charade, the government really is a non-factor for societal productivity. People will say things like "well where would your tech company be without all the infrastructure and government services?" The reality is that a staggeringly small portion of government spending goes to infrastructure, or tech research, or energy, or anything like that. Take a look at the 2013 budget. It's almost all transfer payments, health care, and defense spending. We haven't built any real "infrastructure" in over 60 years. Companies don't even rely on basic government services like police anymore -- they have their own security teams because they know the police will take an hour to show up when called.
I also don't see how you can really disagree with the comment that SF is the new economic center of gravity. Whether or not you're a fan of SF, I don't think there's really a question that it has surpassed NYC and LA as the country's economic powerhouse.
I think the fact that people knew the government would be coming back played a very large role in keeping noticeable effects to a minimum.
2 - Aww, look at these poor folks having to scrape by only on their measly 750,000-pound salary at the age of 28.
This is why people hate bankers.
Eddy, I am a grown man, I cried after viewing the pictures on link #9. Thanks asshole. But seriously, that was the most touching thing I've seen in a long time.
9 was incredibly heartwarming, great find. As for the beer installation video haha, one word...epic!
@ labanker - consider for a moment exactly what happens when $16TT worth of debt starts to default, and then look at those results in relation to the comparatively puny $50BB that Lehman was. We're talking total financial ruin of entire nations, war, famine...the US is the hub of the global economy. Serious question: you really think that an organization with an annual budget of $2.5TT shutting down wouldn't push the world into an economic death spiral? No one really flinched because it was pretty clear from the outset that the GOP had no leverage and would have to back down...had this actually happened though, I'm not sure you could find koolade strong enough to make you think otherwise.
EDIT: US budget is 3.5 trillion, but hey, who's counting?
There was no chance the US was going to default. None. It was all games, as it always is.
To respond to your "serious" question, I think there would definitely be impacts if a $3.8 trillion organization shut down for the long term, but not for the reason you seem to imply. It's not like the $3.8 trillion is some sort of growth injection into the economy. The bulk of it is transfer payments, meaning you are just taking from one group of people and giving it to others (where do you think the money comes from?). The bulk of the rest goes to the defense budget. Neither of those two expenditure categories generate any economic growth or touch the productive sectors, which is why the guy in #5 said as far as SV is concerned, the government doesn't matter.
Dude, all the money the government spends, it gets from the taxpayer. Every single dime. If the government wasn't spending the money wastefully on stupid, infantile projects, the people who actually earned the money would be putting it to good use.
What I'm getting at is that if you shut it all down in the short term, there won't be a long term LOL. I'm kind of making a different point. The guy in #5 is wrong even in the long term though: military, highly concentrated industries, infrastructure, property rights enforcement, education, etc etc etc are the core of the US's economic superstructure...they would not survive without the gov't. They'd exists, no doubt about that, but look at labor utilization pre and post 20th century, it's a night and day comparison. I have to disagree with you.
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