$$$ Mortgage Lenders See Tighter Credit Under New U.S. Rules [Bloomberg] $$$ Draghi Defends Bond Buying Program [WSJ] $$$ Buffett looksfor big-ticket acquisition [FT] $$$ "European sovereign CDS tends to be priced in dollars, for instance, but CSAs might allow counterparties to post less valuable currencies (such as euros) to one another. This should theoretically alter the price of the contract materially – not least because of the correlation between the value of the euro and European sovereigns – but it appears few banks fully price in these risks." [IFR] $$$ Frank Lloyd Wright designed a doghouse; the dog hated it [Letters of Note] $$$ New Forests is looking for a senior financial analyst in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ The Germans want to inspect the gold they store in the Fed's vaults, but John Carney has some MMT to lay on them [NetNet] $$$ "What do prefunded bank deposit guarantee schemes invest in? ... [T]hey buy the bonds of, or make deposits at, banks they guarantee. In one case it is rumoured that a scheme was reluctant to take over a bank because their own assets were deposited at it and they did not want to take losses." [DEM] $$$ Donald Trump is "very honored to have gotten President Obama to release his long form birth certificate, or whatever it was that he released," has moved on to another stunt [@realDonaldTrump] $$$ Superman quit his job to become a blogger [Mashable via MR]

$$$ Senate approves Lew as new Treasury chief [Reuters] $$$ J.C. Penney Posts Large Loss as Sales Sink Further [WSJ] $$$ Wall Street Junk Kings Selling Debt Poised to Lose Value [Bloomberg] $$$ Volcker Rule Could Be Delayed — Again [WSJ] $$$ Occupy the SEC is suing to force regulators to work faster on the Volcker Rule [Occupy the SEC] $$$ MBAs Assemble a Malm Bed from IKEA [YouTube / Wharton Follies] $$$ Citi Private Bank is looking for a senior taxable fixed income portfolio manager in Stamford [DBCC] $$$ Delaware Finds Reverse Triangular Mergers Aren't Assignments [Deal Lawyers] $$$ Calpers Claims Victory in Apple Vote That Didn’t Happen [Deal Journal] $$$ "If a bank's cost of funding went up idiosyncratically, the borrower got penalized. If a bank was suddenly considered a big credit risk, it's borrowers paid the premium." [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ 'Marijuana cannon' used to fire drugs over US border seized in Mexico [Guardian] $$$ Sallie Krawcheck: Going To An All-Girls School Was Tougher Than Working On Wall Street [The Jane Dough]

$$$ Moody's says more steps needed to save US credit rating [Reuters] $$$ Avis to Buy Car-Sharing Service Zipcar [WSJ] $$$ There's going to be a re-settlement of the mortgage settlement [NYT] $$$ BofA Could Join JPMorgan Selling Units to Boost Value, Mayo Says [Bloomberg] $$$ Greek Official Resigns Amid Bank Scandal [WSJ] $$$ The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist [BBW] $$$ A leading financial services firm in Chicago is looking for a corporate strategy & development associate or VP [DBCC] $$$ Up and Down for Einhorn's Greenlight in December [Alpha] $$$ Do Corporations Have Religious Rights? [Law Blog] $$$ You Disgust Me, Christie Tells Boehner in Storm Over Aid [CNBC] $$$ “If somebody had told me I was going to be a high school math teacher in Dallas, Texas, when I entered college, I’d be like, ‘No, there’s no chance of that being true,’ ” said Mr. Dearing, who has deferred an offer from McKinsey. The teaching skills easily translate to office environments, he said. “I’m effectively the leader, every day, for 46 minutes, in front of seven different groups,” Mr. Dearing said. [DealBook]

$$$ Tables turn on Spain with pressure to seek bailout [Reuters] $$$ Maybe David Viniar will be Goldman's chairman when Lloyd retires and Gary is CEO? [WSJ] $$$ "The study found that for a sample of modifications to securitized subprime mortgages, a 10 percent reduction in the monthly payment was associated with a 4.5 percentage point reduction in the twelve-month redefault rate." [New York Fed] $$$ "If Apple continues on its current trajectory, something remarkable might happen on April 9, 2015, at around 11 a.m. That is, statisticians and investors I've spoken with say, a conservative estimate of when Apple could become the first company ever to be valued at $1 trillion." [NYT!] $$$ Welcome to the world Quartz! [Qz] $$$ "To call the Berenstains anthropomorphized bears insults both humans and bears." [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ Credit Suisse is looking for a research analyst for commodity strategies in asset management in New York [DBCC] $$$ U.S. Corporate Bond Tally Could Top $100 Billion in September [WSJ] $$$ Meredith Whitney is still pretty sure banks will fire a lot of people [CNBC] $$$ William Cohan confuses himself horribly about Whaledemort [Bloomberg] $$$ Mario Batali is paying $1.15mm to Del Posto employees to settle a lawsuit over wages, tips, overtime and discrimination [Diner's Journal] $$$ Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “Fuck Off” And “Have A Good Life” [BF] $$$ Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get Why Airplane Windows Don’t Open [DI]

$$$ A Nobel Prize for Market Design [Digitopoly via @Counterparties] $$$ Study shows $1.2 trillion gap for public pensions [Reuters] $$$ RBS Said to Suspend European Rates Trading Head on Libor [Bloomberg] $$$ Softbank to Buy Sprint Nextel for About $20 Billion [WSJ] $$$ "The study's results identified three factors that groups with high team intelligence possess: The ability of group members to read and respond to social cues; The proportion of women in the group (women tend to do better on social perception tests); Evenly distributed conversational turn-taking, rather than dominance by a few members." [HBR] $$$ Paul Ryan Scrubs Already Washed Soup-Kitchen Pots Because That’s How Much He Cares [DI] $$$ A top investment bank is looking for a director-level global markets risk senior manager in New York [DBCC] $$$ Goldman Names Bayo Ogunlesi to Its Board [DealBook] $$$ Basel liquidity rules and their impact on the interbank money market [VoxEU] $$$ "Squirrels don’t lobby Congress, when the ranger decides to burn down the bit of the forest where their acorns are buried. Banks and their creditors are unlikely to take 'controlled burns' of their institutions so stoically." [interfluidity] $$$ This is an amusing story about a research analyst screwing up a model to show a covered company needing $500mm of capital instead of the correct $50mm [Integrity Research Watch] $$$ Koch brothers’ company encourages employees to vote for Romney in mass mailing [NYDN]

$$$ U.S. investigates whether JPMorgan traders hid losses [Reuters] $$$ Was JPMorgan's restatement actually an elaborate plot to get Ina Drew's comp clawed back? No? [Felix Salmon] $$$ Fed May Need To Begin New Asset Purchases, Lockhart Says [Bloomberg] $$$ Ex-Mets star Dykstra pleads guilty in bankruptcy fraud case [NYP] $$$ "You have to sit there in silence, and you just get up every day and beat your head against the wall," but for that (and ratting out Countrywide) they'll pay you $14.5 million [Reuters] $$$ Q&A: The Gourmand Behind New York's $666 'Douche Burger' [BW] $$$ Deutsche Bank is looking for a VP-level Group Finance COO business manager [DBCC] $$$ Spanish Bank Borrowing from ECB Surges [WSJ] $$$ Italy sells debt despite downgrade [FT] $$$ Visa, MasterCard in $6 Billion Settlement Over Surcharges [WSJ] $$$ Wealthy Homeowners Brace for 'Mansion Cliff' [CNBC!] $$$ Attention Cable and Satellite Subscribers: This Network Is Being Dropped Because Your Provider Is Being a Giant Douche [McSweeney's]

Ex-Deutsche Bank analyst fined, suspended over stock rating; Dairy downturn hurts banks; Man wakes up with huge penis tattoo on his leg; and more.

$$$ Swelling Bond Yields Add to EU Pressure [WSJ] $$$ Goodbye Smith Barney [DealBook] $$$ A Marxist take on the European Central Bank [Slack Wire] $$$ Izzy Kaminska: "If it is true that the system can increasingly provide a base level of existence for ever more people for almost no cost, should we be surprised that those western countries where a base level of existence is adequate — because of weather, surroundings and general environment — are the first to opt out of unnecessary human productivity?" [FTAV] $$$ Corporate political giving is negatively correlated with market performance for most companies, positively correlated with performance for firms in highly regulated industries [Rice via WonkBlog] $$$ Mitt Romney and "Sport," a Continuing Saga [MoJo] $$$ CRT Capital Group is looking for a credit product sales assistant in Stamford [DBCC] $$$ SEC Charges 14 Sales Agents In $415 Million Long Island-Based Ponzi Scheme [SEC] $$$ Greek Antiquities, Long Fragile, Are Endangered by Austerity [NYT] $$$ The Volume Clock: Insights into the High Frequency Paradigm [SSRN via MR] $$$ Someone at ISDA appears to have the job of pointing out when Gretchen Morgenson is wrong about derivatives [ISDA] $$$ The explosion of the yacht named Blind Date was a hoax [NYP]