1) Alexandra Lebenthal: The new queen of Wall Street (CNN Money) - Most of you are too young to remember her father, but Alexandra Lebenthal is a chip off the old block. The muni-bond queen has taken back her family name and heads the firm established by her grandparents. I love stories like this.
2) Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke (Rolling Stone) - Thought this was appropriate based on the discussion we had earlier this week. Matt Taibbi brings up the unjust dichotomy between Main Street and Wall Street when it comes to drug crime and punishment. Nobody from HSBC is going to see one hour behind bars after laundering millions of dollars for the cartels, but if Joe Shit the Ragman is caught with a dimebag he's basically FFL.
3) Guy Fieri's Infamous Times Square Restaurant Is A Perfect Place For Wall Street Bankers (Business Insider) - I don't know if you guys saw the New York Times takedown of Fieri's new restaurant, but the guys over at Business Insider want to set the record straight.
4) Lagarde says 'fiscal cliff' threatens US supremacy (France24) - If you believe the world's favorite French econ hottie from Chicago, this Fiscal Cliff thing is for all the marbles. According to Lagarde, if the US doesn't find a solution before going over the cliff, it's going to have a life-altering effect on the global economy.
5) From Bernie Madoff to Steven Cohen, Enabling Suspiciously High Returns (Pro Publica) - I don't know why people act surprised when a hedgie gets busted for insider trading or cooking the books and all the investors seem not to care. Maybe I give people more credit than is due, but if your money manager is charging you 2/20 and still manages to post double digit returns year after year, you know something's rotten in Denmark and you'll never convince me you didn't know.
6) Stalled Crowdfunding Rules Leave Business Plans on Ice (Wall Street Journal) - I had a feeling this was going to happen. Once the issue was out of the limelight it found it's way to the back burner. Here's hoping we have something in place by the end of the first quarter.
7) New Google Maps App Restores Order to the Universe (Businessweek) - What do you want to bet Tim Cook's gonna have a few stiff drinks this weekend? Pretty serious drubbing (all brought on by themselves, of course) at the hands of Google. Yeah, there's an app for that.
8) 'Gangnam Style' death prompts warning to middle-aged men not to attempt the vigorous dance (The Independent) - Oh, for fuck's sake. There's so much FAIL in this I don't even know where to begin.
9) Meet Easilydo: The productivity app you didn’t know you were waiting for (Pando Daily) - Wow. Just...wow. You're welcome, iPhone users. Can we get this for Android, like, yesterday?
10) Fuck It, Man On Death Row Just Going To Read Entire Harry Potter Series (The Onion) - I don't know why, but something about this Onion piece just got me laughing really hard. The guys over at the Onion really are the best at what they do.
Video of the Week:
Thought I'd send you guys into the weekend with a little inspiration this week. There have been a lot of these videos made recently, but this one is exceptionally well done. Do yourself a favor, plug in the headphones and go FULL SCREEN for six minutes. You'll be glad you did.
That's it for Fiscal Cliff Week, monkeys. I had a great time. Have a tremendous weekend and let me know what you think of this week's bananas in the comments!
Damn, that video just reminds us how insignificant all this shit is in the grand scheme of things.
One of my roommates when I was 20 was in construction and he fired up his bong every morning at 5:30am before going to work.
This crowdfunding equity stuff is going to be fun to watch. Its going to be like the wild west if rules don't get hammered out soon. I'm thinking like Daniel Drew and Jay Gould kinda stuff...
Guy Fieri is hilarious. I can just picture him at dinner with a huge bucket of fatty grease covered red meat slathered in melted cheese, scarfs it all down in 5 minutes, inhales it really, and then passes out on the floor. I expect his "restaurant" to reflect that sentiment.
(2) The drug 'war' is an embarrassment. No matter how much money we pour into it, addiction rates are the same. At the end of the day, the personal cost (monetary, social, etc.) to becoming a drug addict is so high that you don't really need a government incentive (prison time, penalties, etc.) to stop people from using. At least that's how I read the data.
Of course, the government doesn't care about results. It cares about the machine it must now sustain through ever-increasing government spending.
(9) Holy shit, thank you for Easilydo. I've been meaning-to-but-was-never-actually-going-to clean up my contact list for a while (i.e., merging emails with mobile numbers with home numbers -- that sort of thing). Don't know about the other features as of yet, but that alone was worth the download.
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