$$$ S&P cuts Spain credit rating to BBB-minus, near junk [Reuters] $$$ E-Mails Appear to Back Lawsuit’s Claim That Equity Firms Colluded on Big Deals [DealBook] $$$ Tarullo Calls for Cap on Bank Size [WSJ] $$$ Political backlash over BAE deal collapse [FT] $$$ First-week Bain Capital analyst sort of attempts to buy Gawker, Gawker explains birds and bees, analyst concludes "This is awkward." [Gawker] $$$ A financial services firm is looking for an enterprise risk manager in Philadelphia [DBCC] $$$ Stocks Skid Into Earnings Pothole [WSJ] $$$ Narula Masters Fed, Beats Funds With 500% Gain [Bloomberg] $$$ Citing Deep Data Collections, Senator Opens Inquiry of Information Brokers [NYT] $$$ Pro-Life Congressman Recorded Himself Convincing Mistress to Get an Abortion [DI]

$$$ Catalonia Asks Spanish Government for Emergency Funds [NYT] $$$ Asia's Tide of Cash Hems in Policy Makers [WSJ] $$$ Morgan Stanley Win On Brokerage Would Be Pyrrhic Victory [Bloomberg] $$$ Paulson Assures Bank of America in Call [WSJ] $$$ "When I asked a PE tax attorney if what Bain is doing is allowed, she told me that 'allowed' and 'not allowed' isn't always the right way to think about it." Tax lawyers! [Term Sheet] $$$ The CFA Institute comes out against Great Idea Corp. [Forbes] $$$ Shia LaBeouf Got Into Character for Upcoming Film by Dropping Acid On Set [Gawker] $$$ William Blair is looking for an experienced associate for its technology investment banking group in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ S.E.C. Charges 8 With Insider Trading in Sanofi Deal [DealBook] $$$ ISM sells a low-latency feed of its business data to Reuters [MarketBeat] $$$ “There’s an idea that when a lawyer or law firms are going to get a big payment, that there’s something somehow wrong about that, just because it’s a lawyer. I’m sorry, but investment banks have hit it big, a lot bigger the plaintiffs’ lawyer firms have hit it big. They’ve hit it big many times.” This Law Blog story on the Grupo Mexico verdict is kind of amazing. [WSJ Law Blog] $$$ Wall Street Rocker Gary Marks Settles With SEC Over Whether Knew What He Was Talking About [NYO] $$$ "There were no workers that were forced to attend the event. We had managers that communicated to our work force that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event." [Raw Story] $$$ Hitler clothing store in India asked to change name [JTA]

$$$ Fed Minutes Suggest Action Likely [WSJ] $$$ Ainslie Up 20% As Stock Hedge Funds Defy Four-Year Slump $$$ Best Buy shareholders caught in the crossfire [Term Sheet] $$$ FTC Clears Facebook’s Instagram Purchase [Deal Journal] $$$ "Bain is a financial firm, but Romney wasn’t some Wall Street bank-monkey with a pitch book. He was the guy who fired you." [National Review] [!!] $$$ Wharton-Bound Goat Trainer Failed To Get Her Pet Goat To Perform On National Television [IvyGate] $$$ A middle market private equity firm is looking for a senior associate in South Florida [DBCC] $$$ Bernanke ‘More Popular Than Justin Bieber’? [CNBC] $$$ Broken Brokerages: Finance Luminaries Join Fight Over Uniform Fiduciary Standard [NYO] $$$ Chinese acquisitions in US near record [FT] $$$ Obama Says First Dog Bo Is on a Diet [DI] $$$ Man Convicted of Assault for Punching McDonald’s Employee After Sundae Arrived with Hot Fudge on the Bottom [Gawker]

$$$ Hedge fund chief Einhorn disappoints, Loeb has big 2012 [Reuters] $$$ JPMorgan Faces Sanction for Withholding Madoff Documents [Bloomberg] $$$ Ackman's Herbalife thesis: someone from the government will help poor people and billionaire hedge fund managers ... [Bronte Capital] $$$ Connections are key for the careers of male Wall Street analysts. For females, it’s education and forecast accuracy [AEI] $$$ Tom Wolfe: "Up until 2006 a spirit of manly daring had pervaded Wall Street’s investment bankers" but apparently not any more [Newsweek] $$$ ‘Teens’ Caught Egging Suburban Home Turn Out to Be Off-Duty Police Officers [Gawker] $$$ Mosaic Financial Markets is looking for a capital markets business analyst in New York [DBCC] $$$ You should buy a lot of Turkish stocks because they're guaranteed to go up! [Bloomberg, FTAV] $$$ New rule could turn U.S. hedge funds into informers on fraud [Reuters] $$$ Cerberus Close to Supervalu Deal [WSJ] $$$ How the World Has Changed [Alea] $$$ Historical Echoes: The Origins of the Piggy Bank [NY Fed] $$$ Finally, the Accessory We’ve Been Waiting For: A Wearable Cat Tail That Wags In Response to Your Heartbeat [Fashionista]

$$$ Citigroup Boys' Club Highlights Industry Gender Gap [AB] $$$ Bernie Madoff reveals that merger arbitrage is often insider trading and other secrets of the 1980s [CNBC] $$$ The National Futures Association is trying to figure out how to catch the next Peregrine Financial fraud by asking Peregrine Financial [WSJ] $$$ JPMorgan Said to Face Order to Tighten Money-Laundering Controls [Bloomberg] $$$ You can email Mark Zuckerberg for $100 [Mashable] $$$ Registration for the 5th annual Decathlon starts Tuesday, January 22! This year's competition takes place on July 28th, and also includes monthly “Throw Downs” where all registered Decathletes compete in 1-2 Decathlon events and collect charity bets on head-to-head match-ups (40 yard dash! Pull-ups! Bench press!). All proceeds benefit the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. $$$ A hedge fund is looking for a junior equities relationship manager in Manhattan [DBCC] $$$ FrontPoint veteran's Copia Capital liquidates all funds, readies rebirth [AR] $$$ Don’t worry about an Elliott vs Argentina precedent [Reuters / Felix Salmon] $$$ Why exchanges should be forced to use open source software [Jayanth Varma] $$$ Chicken Wing Prices Take Flight to Record High [Bloomberg] $$$ Dog teaches puppy how to go down stairs [Gawker]

$$$ Eurozone deal over bank bailout in doubt [FT] $$$ U.K. Bankers Group to Stop Overseeing Libor [WSJ] $$$ The Smith Barney Name Still Lives (Sort of) [Deal Journal] $$$ Mason Capital may lose money on its delightful Telus trade [DealBook] $$$ Actually, business and political leaders aren't that stressed [LAT] $$$ “I’ve had to sit here all night staring at a whale,” [Jes] Staley said last night, a few hours into a gala for the NYU Langone Medical Center’s Hospital for Joint Diseases and Center for Musculoskeletal Care. He was accepting an award for corporate leadership. Staley then suggested the whale could be replaced with the squid in the room, which, he clarified afterward, meant Goldman Sachs Group Inc., represented by his friend Gary D. Cohn, chairman of the dinner and the hospital’s advisory board. Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi called Goldman a “vampire squid.” All this took place about 20 feet from a diorama depicting a battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid. Which creature will triumph is unclear, though squid have been found in whales’ stomachs. [Bloomberg] $$$ Macquarie's Credit Solutions Group, a distressed and special situations financing group, is looking for a 2nd or 3rd-year analyst in New York [DBCC] $$$ Or just be an event coordinator for Breaking Media [Fashionista] $$$ Uber Bear Sees S&P at 800...Just Not Yet [CNBC!] $$$ Eighth Grader Says He Vandalized Congressman’s Office [NYT] $$$ Mitt Romney Stops Supporters from Chanting ‘Ryan’ to Ensure They Say His Name Too [Gawker] $$$ Police launched investigation into the 'suspicious' moon [Telegraph]

$$$ Spain rating slashed 3 notches by Moody's [Reuters] $$$ Citigroup was once worse than it is now [Bloomberg] $$$ Gupta Prosecutors Draw ‘Secret Pipeline’ Pattern; Defense Asks, ‘Where’s the Beef?’ [DealBook] $$$ JPMorgan doomsday scenario revealed [FT, FTAV] $$$ Large Institutions Discuss New Marketplace for Bonds [WSJ] $$$ George W. Bush’s decapitated head appeared on Game of Thrones [io9] $$$ Lombard Street Research is looking for a senior institutional sales executive in New York [DBCC] $$$ Crédit Agricole Girds Greek Unit for Greece Euro Exit [WSJ] $$$ Two PMs leave Taconic to form value equity shop [AR] $$$ Should lawyers have stopped the London Whale? [ATL] $$$ Endless QE? $6 trillion and counting [Reuters] $$$ Cops: Man on drugs rammed Stamford police cruisers [Stamford Advocate]

$$$ Markets are building up a tolerance to Eurozone blather [Sober Look, RTE] $$$ Germany set to allow eurozone bailout fund to buy troubled countries' debt [Guardian] $$$ EU official says Greek bailout terms up for talks [Reuters] $$$ Goldman Stuck With a Defense Tab, and Awaiting a Payback [DealBook] $$$ College graduates with arts majors are pretty employed [Gawker] $$$ Mark Ruffalo Joins Call for a Tax on Wall Street [DealBook] $$$ Surely you'd like to join Morgan Stanley's Structured Secured Funding desk in New York as an Executive Director? [DBCC] $$$ Walgreen to Spend $6.7 Billion on Alliance Boots Stake [WSJ] $$$ Jefferies profits hit by trading slump [FT] $$$ Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners Takes Lazard Stake [II] $$$ BNY Mellon settles with Prudential Fin over forex trades [Reuters] $$$ Stay-Rich-Quick Schemes [McSweeney's]