$$$ NGDP-targeting inventor Scott Sumner is celebrating [Money Illusion] $$$ The Fed will buy over half of all new agency MBS [Sober Look] $$$ Ray Dalio describes the machine [Free Exchange, CFR] $$$ Bank complexity makes Sally Krawcheck "weep blood out of [her] eyes" [DealBook] $$$ Greece to Lease 40 Uninhabited Islands to Reduce Debt [Bloomberg] $$$ Efficient Markets Theory Can Save You From A Grizzly Death By Botched Penile Enlargement [Slate] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a director of global mobility in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ Deutsche Bank urges rivals to share IT [FT] $$$ Fairfax Case Against Morgan Keegan, Exis Dismissed [Bloomberg] $$$ The Volcker Rule's ban on short-term prop trading will prevent AIG from buying and holding long-term assets for some reason [DealBook] $$$ You only have six more months to buy giant sodas in New York City [NYT] $$$ "The Author in Fancy Dress as a Side of Bacon, designed by himself, which took the First Prize of Forty Guineas at the Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball, April 1894." [Retronaut]

$$$ Fed Maintains $85 Billion Pace of Monthly Asset Purchases [Bloomberg] $$$ Lenders Balk at New Cyprus Aid Plan [WSJ] $$$ Medvedev lambasts EU over Cyprus levy [FT] $$$ "A redesigned package may well go “the full Iceland”; look after the locals and shaft the foreigners." [Paweł Morski] $$$ SAC Capital up 4 percent this year as probe continues [Reuters] $$$ "So in the battle of the scumbags, who should we be rooting for? It's kind of like the Russians fighting the Germans during World War II because you want them both to lose." - Charlie Gasparino on Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn [HuffPo] $$$ "Nine top Barclays executives including Chief Executive Antony Jenkins and investment banking head Rich Ricci received £40.3 million ($60.8 million) in shares Wednesday from earlier-year incentive plans, a month after the bank said it would take a stricter line on pay." [WSJ] $$$ Bondholders withdraw claim Penney was in default on bond terms [Reuters] $$$ Synthetic CDOs Making Comeback as Yields Juiced [Bloomberg] $$$ UK-based cannabinoid therapeutics developer GW Pharmaceuticals files for US IPO [Renaissance Capital] $$$ "America's corporate boards could use a Martin Lipton 2.0." [Breakingviews] $$$ Hamptons Landlords Suing Over Reality-Show Semen Stains [DI]

$$$ Santander, BBVA Among Spanish Banks Downgraded By Moody’s [Bloomberg] $$$ Spain denies bank run reports [FT] $$$ Big banks need extra $566bn, says Fitch [FT, FTAV] $$$ Icahn Takeover of CVR Gets Support From 55% of Holders [Bloomberg] $$$ JPMorgan's Dimon says will testify before Congress [Reuters] $$$ Occupy Wall Street is staging an intervention with Jamie Dimon [NC] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a performance analyst in Princeton [DBCC] $$$ At CME, an Uproar Over Trading Hours [WSJ] $$$ SEC Probes Role of Hedge Fund in CDOs [WSJ] $$$ Which Biglaw Firm Accidentally Released Embarrassing, Unredacted Documents About Goldman Sachs? [ATL] $$$ Floyd Norris: "For market makers, who may buy unwanted securities that customers want to sell, hedging may be wise and prudent. But it will also be short term, until the bank trades out of whatever position it took on in the course of making the market. But if banks hedge long-term investments, as JPMorgan evidently did, the hedge is also likely to be long term. It will consist of buying something that, in normal times, should move in the opposite direction of their investment. The result is that they will be making convergence trades that are indistinguishable from what Long Term Capital Management did. Given the size of the big banks, they will have to do so in huge volumes that can come back to haunt them if markets move the wrong way." [NYT] $$$ The Boldface Names on the Witness List for Gupta’s Trial includes Lloyd Blankfein, Gary Cohn, Ken Chenault, Raj Rajaratnam, James Barnacle, and Adam Smith [DealBook]

$$$ David Einhorn is at the final table of the $1mm buy-in no-limit hold-em event at the World Series of Poker [ESPN] $$$ Police search Sarkozy home and offices [FT] $$$ JPMorgan’s Role in Power Market Comes Under Scrutiny [DealBook] $$$ Fink Says Diamond ‘Emotion’ May Have Aggravated Regulator [Bloomberg] $$$ The culture of CEO-punching runs deep at BarcLeh [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ That’s it for us today. Enjoy the 4th and we'll see you on Thursday. $$$ A $10 billion NY-based asset manager is looking for an ADR arbitrage trader - interested? [DBCC] $$$ Welcome back Ireland! [FTAV] $$$ SEC Loses Bid to Get SIPC to Pay Stanford Ponzi Claims [WSJ] $$$ In Maine, lobster that is cheaper than bologna [MSNBC] $$$ Tom Cruise prevented a Dawson's Creek reunion [NYP]

$$$ Eurozone delays Athens rescue funds [FT] $$$ Loans to Banks Cool Debt Crisis [WSJ] $$$ European Leaders Challenged by Rise in Joblessness [NYT] $$$ An explanation of that Barclays tax trade, with cartoons [FTAV] $$$ Sofa King can no longer advertise prices that are "Sofa King low" in the UK [Language Log] $$$ Mitt Romney has worn a garbage bag for rain gear $$$ Fed's Dilemma: Markets Want Both Growth—And Stimulus [CNBC] $$$ Facebook seeking bigger credit line [Reuters] $$$ Unlike other types of complex financial transactions, insider trading prosecutions usually do not require jurors to develop sophisticated knowledge of the financial markets or securities valuation. There is not a statutory definition establishing its parameters, so it can be applied to a wide variety of transactions, and the crime does not have complicated requirements for proving a violation. Prosecutors are cracking down on insider trading because there's no law telling people what's illegal and unsophisticated jurors will convict [DealBook] $$$ Oprah's Book Club makes people read less [MR] $$$ The personal assistant of Paris Hilton's sister's hedge funder ex-husband Todd Meister was maybe dating him while she was stealing $1mm from him, or something like that [NYP]

$$$ Something something something ECB bond-buying [FT] $$$ Banker Bonuses At Risk As EU Lawmakers Fight Barnier Plans [Bloomberg] $$$ Yelp Surges After Lockup Expires [DealBook] $$$ M&A volumes are down but at least there are a lot of small deals [DealBook] $$$ People prefer potential success to actual success in hiring [HBR] $$$ "At each of its most efficient restaurants, Chipotle averages more than 350 transactions during the lunch hour — about one every 11 seconds." [WSJ, related?] $$$ Prudential is looking for a fixed income senior associate [DBCC] $$$ Greg Fleming won't run E*Trade [Term Sheet] $$$ "The interests of PE firms and their investors do not coincide with the companies that have been taken over, not in the way that Romney and his adherents would have you believe." Matt Taibbi gropes toward a theory of the corporation. [RS] $$$ Bond-Trading Firm Gleacher Said To Seek Buyer [Bloomberg] $$$ Barack Obama does a Reddit AskMeAnything, doesn't really answer anything [Reddit] $$$ Romney Party Yacht Flies Cayman Islands Flag [ABC]

$$$ Greek left attacks ‘barbarous’ austerity [FT] $$$ Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook [WSJ/FT/CNBC/Reuters] $$$ Freddie Mac Chooses CEO [WSJ] $$$ After McClendon's trades, Chesapeake board gave blessing [Reuters] $$$ Tim Sykes is still doing things [BetaBeat, earlier] $$$ "A bank robbery, in our imagination, provides the robber with a one-off high-risk opportunity to become incredibly wealthy, in comparatively guilt-free fashion: No one but the corporation loses any money, so, what the fuck? That used to be the case, but due to inflation — as well as a host of other factors — it no longer is." [The Billfold] $$$ CIBC Global Asset Management is looking for a high yield VP in Toronto [DBCC] $$$ House Republicans are complaining that the Fed is helping the economy too much, causing House Republicans not to want to help the economy [Real Time Economics] $$$ Could a Stock ETF Cloak Its Portfolio? [WSJ] $$$ Green Mountain Chairman Replaced After Stock Sales [WSJ] $$$ Nomura is growing headcount [Bloomberg] $$$ “It lived alongside our ancestors, and it probably ate them,” said Christopher Brochu, an associate professor of geoscience at the University of Iowa and a study author. “We don’t actually have fossil human remains with croc bites, but the crocs were bigger than today’s crocodiles, and we were smaller, so there probably wasn’t much biting involved.” [Bloomberg]

$$$ Spain reveals €100bn capital flight [FT] $$$ Spain Says It Has Months to Raise Bank-Bailout Funds [WSJ] $$$ Market Braces for What Could Be Another Weak Jobs Report [CNBC] $$$ Goldman’s Cohn Warns Of Poaching Risks From Further Cuts [Bloomberg] $$$ Larry Fink's hedge-fund-manager son Josh isn't having a great time of it [AR-Alpha] $$$ "T. Boone Pickens, who apparently follows Drake on Twitter, sure isn't [impressed], replying 'The first billion is a helluva lot harder' with a mic-drop retweet." [Gizmodo] $$$ RAND Corporation is looking for a business analyst in Santa Monica [DBCC] $$$ Blankfein Expected to Testify at Gupta Trial [WSJ] $$$ JPMorgan CIO Swaps Pricing Said to Differ From Bank [Bloomberg] $$$ Felix Salmon is in a fight with a startup that has "has the best part of $300,000 in interest-free financing repayable at a time of its choosing in underwear." [Reuters] $$$ "'They signed off on their messages with LOL — laughing out loud,' Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. 'Well, there was a person who was laughing out loud. That was Police Officer Michael Rodrigues of the 77th Precinct.'" [NYP] $$$ Try "the Douche Burger, a $666 edible fiscal disaster that piles caviar, lobster & truffles on top of a foie-stuffed, gold-leaf-wrapped Kobe patty, smothers it with Gruyere melted with Champagne steam, and finishes it off with BBQ sauce made using Kopi Luwak coffee that's passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet, explaining why it 'may not taste good, but will make you feel rich as f*ck.'" [Thrillist via Copyranter]