$$$ Schaeuble Declares Markets Wrong As Europe Heads To Vacation [Bloomberg] $$$ Don't Force Banks Into 'Draconian' Breakups: Whitney [CNBC] $$$ Morgan Stanley Stock May Be Worth $32 In Breakup, Mayo Says [Bloomberg] $$$ The Merkley plan to refinance underwater mortgages sounds pretty good [Reuters / Felix Salmon] $$$ Outspoken Analyst Kinnucan Pleads Guilty in Insider Case [WSJ] $$$ Man who rescued a 17-pound lobster "felt the nearly 100-year-old crustacean did not deserve to die with its parts soaked in butter. 'If he was 100, he saw World War I, World War II, man on the moon,' he said. 'Being in New England, he even saw the Red Sox win the World Series. So, he didn’t deserve the boiling water.'" [CBS] $$$ Due to recent regulatory requirements, a top bank in Charlotte is looking for a counterparty credit risk manager to be a Basel expert [DBCC] $$$ Libor scandal makes it more costly for bankers to get insured [Reuters] $$$ Europe Aims to Make Rate Manipulation a Criminal Offense [DealBook] $$$ Fund managers to lose securities lending profits [FT] $$$ The Securities and Exchange Commission drew sharp criticism from a federal judge who said they have failed to properly oversee a $55 million investor education fund created by a nearly decade-old settlement with Wall Street banks. The fund had been created as part of a roughly $1.5 billion regulatory accord in 2003 with Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and other banks accused of publishing biased analyst research. U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan said the SEC has shown a "lack of oversight" and "indifference" toward how a nonprofit organization charged with distributing the money has been managed. ... Pauley pointed as an example to a two-year, $91,500 grant to the Genesee District Library in Flint, Michigan, that appeared to have resulted in just two events, one of which concerned "spending, sharing, and saving" for children ages two to five. "While there may be benefits to starting investor education early, toddlers seem beyond the pale," the judge wrote in an order issued Wednesday. [Reuters] $$$ Mitt Romney would restore 'Anglo-Saxon' relations between Britain and America [Telegraph]

$$$ Excited for Whale day? [Reuters] $$$ Banks’ Libor costs may hit $22bn [FT] $$$ Bain Starts Raising Buyout Fund With $6 Billion Target [Bloomberg] $$$ PFG Employee Files Lawsuit for Wages so he could afford the new leash, harness and doggie bed he had bought for Apple, his terrier mix [FINS] $$$ Piggy bank has a new meaning in a town east of Vienna after a surveillance camera caught a wild pig on a night foray to a local branch of one of Austria’s financial institutions. The Austria Press Agency reports that the inquisitive porker managed to push open a locked sliding glass door of a bank in Hainburg an der Donau to make its way inside. After looking around, it left the same way it came without causing significant damage, with the door locking behind it. [AP] $$$ A prominent broker-dealer is looking for a junior non-agency mortgage trader [DBCC] $$$ Richard Posner: Why There Are Too Many Patents in America [Atlantic] $$$ Goldman recruits former Treasury spokesman [FT] $$$ In spite of the Barclays scandal, LIBOR product continues to do well [Sober Look] $$$ Here you will find NSFW pictures of dinosaur loving [Daily Mail]

$$$ The Einhorn burrito taste test [Felix Salmon] $$$ Mortgage prepayment rates highest since 2005 [CR] $$$ Do you think Harvard Business School will ever again send less than 30% of its graduates to the financial industry? [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ "What’s America’s FICO score? One analyst tries to find out" for some reason [MW] $$$ Chelsea Clinton loved working at her parents' friend's hedge fund because it was "fiercely meritocratic," but left because money "wasn’t the metric I wanted to judge my life by in a professional sense." [Bloomberg] $$$ SQUIRREL HATS [Onward State] $$$ A large global corporate and investment bank is looking for a credit analyst in New York [DBCC] $$$ EU Banks Face Tougher Capital Requirements [WSJ] $$$ Grassley Turning Up Heat on Geithner Over LIBOR Scandal [FBN] $$$ Report: Wall Street is pricing in a 2012 Democratic victory [WonkBlog] $$$ The Glory Days of Currency Trading Are Over: HSBC [CNBC] $$$ Police seize 660 barrels of syrup possibly linked to Quebec maple heist [Globe & Mail]

$$$ Hedge fund scorecard 2012: Mortgage masters win, Paulson on bottom again [Reuters] $$$ Watchdog Says U.S. Treasury Failed to Curb AIG, GM Pay [Bloomberg] $$$ Buffett Said to Have Expressed Interest in Buying NYSE Euronext [DealBook] $$$ Yahoo Profit Drops but Revenue Rises [CNBC] $$$ Henry Blodget got on a plane and the plane went way up in the sky and it was good to be on the plane but then there was pee-pee on the plane and the pee-pee wasn't good [BI, but mostly Twitter] $$$ A global financial firm is looking for a quant in New York [DBCC] $$$ Jana Chides Agrium Over CEO Comments [Deal Journal] $$$ FTC Action Leads Court to Halt Alleged Pyramid Scheme [FTC] $$$ People don't want to kill robots [NPR] $$$ Here is an amazing picture of the Queen of the Netherlands, who quit today [Qz]

$$$ Slow U.S. Hiring May Spur Fed [WSJ] $$$ Germany faces ECB backlash [FT] $$$ Dealer inventories of corporate bonds are at a ten-year low [FTAV] $$$ New York AG Eric Schneiderman's investigation into whether private equity firms illegally converted ordinary income into capital gains is complicated by the fact that ordinary income and capital gains are taxed at the same rate in New York [Reuters] $$$ "From 1971 to the present, money market funds without defaulted securities would have a shadow NAV below 0.995 15.4% of the time" due to interest rate movements [Aleph Blog] $$$ Wells Fargo broke into a house, took all the owners' stuff, destroyed it, found out that it was the wrong house [CBS] $$$ Peregrine Financial is missing its SpongeBob SquarePants silver coins [NYO] $$$ Citi is looking for an audit manager - mortgages in New York [DBCC] $$$ "Xstrata is indicating it thinks that retaining its management in the top positions may be worth more than that $4.5 billion. Now that is a valuable management." [WSJ / Dealpolitik] $$$ ICP Asset Management paid $23 million to settle its SEC suit over mismanaging its CDOs [SEC] $$$ Jim O'Neill hits out at 'weird world of benchmarking [Citywire] $$$ Rajaratnam's insider-trading appeal set for Oct. 25 [Reuters] $$$ World's Best Internship—Interviewing Porn Stars [CNBC] $$$ Restaurant Owner Creates Fake Sex Site Profile for Patron Who Posted Negative Review Online [Gawker]

$$$ Gawker acquires semi-public audited financials of Bain Capital funds, orgasms all over them [Gawker, related] $$$ Bain Capital's conversion of management fees into carry may have been tax aggressive [Victor Fleischer] $$$ Republicans eye return to gold standard [FT] $$$ New York Fed Sells Last of AIG Bonds, at a Profit [WSJ] $$$ "Hedge Funds, Grimacing, Open the Kimono" [Bloomberg] $$$ BlackRock would like to hire a securities lending accounting associate in San Francisco, if that's your cup of tea [DBCC] $$$ The Downsizing of the American Butler [CNBC] $$$ What's up with Best Buy? [DealBook] $$$ Citi passed its make-up stress test [Reuters] $$$ Seven-Year-Old Wins Iceland Ram Groping Contest [Iceland Review via MR]

$$$ Stocks Near New Heights as Small Investors Regain Faith [NYT] $$$ J.P. Morgan Risk Officer Taking Leave of Absence [WSJ] $$$ Soros Says Hedge Funds Can’t Beat Market Because of Fees [Bloomberg] $$$ UBS Chairman proposes industry-wide settlement over Libor [Reuters] $$$ "One explanation for the confusion is that many things that are considered normal in finance look like fraud to almost everyone else." [Free Exchange] $$$ Outcry Over Bid to Make Water Cheaper Than Beer [WSJ] $$$ An investment management firm is looking for a senior investment associate to research credit hedge funds in D.C. [DBCC] $$$ Europe's Banks Rush to Repay ECB Funds [WSJ] $$$ U.S. Court Ruling Threatens Consumer Bureau Decisions [Bloomberg] $$$ Italy's Monte Paschi faces shareholder fury as scandal widens [Reuters] $$$ You may be surprised to learn that "the president and chairman of Mortgage Xpress, Inc. (subsequently renamed The Alternative Energy Technology Center, Inc.)" was sued by the SEC [SEC] $$$ Cory Booker Continues His Steady March Toward Canonization by Personally Saving a Stranded Dog from Freezing to Death [Gawker]

$$$ Rick Santorum drops out of the presidential race [WaPo] $$$ Alcoa Posts Surprise Profit After Aluminum Orders Climb [Bloomberg] $$$ Hedge funds lag the market, again [Fortune] $$$ Dan Loeb has convinced Yahoo that it's time to move forward with some buzzwords [AllThingsD] $$$ "The conventional wisdom that Facebook sees Instagram as competition is not the whole story. It may also see Instagram as particularly advertiser-friendly content that its users currently have trouble producing. Think of it as a $1 billion way to make your parents’ status updates more interesting." [Reuters / Ryan McCarthy] $$$ Interested in behavioral economics? Then don't buy Karl Daniels's Fast and Slow Thinking. [Language Log] $$$ Mitt Romney Is Doing ‘Gay Voice’ in This Video, Says Professional Gay Voice Expert Bob Corff [Gawker] $$$ How would you like to be a portfolio management associate at Starwood Capital in Greenwich? [DBCC] $$$ NY pushes objection to BofA $8.5 billion mortgage pact [Reuters] $$$ "Court: Checking Facebook on Your Work Computer Isn't a Crime." Other courts disagree. [WSJ Law Blog] $$$ "For the first time in its 4 1/2 year life, a program on the Fox Business Network has topped a show on CNBC for an entire week in both Total Viewers and younger viewers." [TVNewser via Talking Biz News] $$$ What Do Europe's Pirate Parties Stand for? [Bloomberg] $$$ This happened [BI] $$$ Mayonnaise Store Now Open in Prospect Heights [Brownstoner] $$$ 5-year-old brings heroin for 'show and tell' [Stamford Advocate]