$$$ Clogged Credit Weighs on Fed Policy Makers [WSJ] $$$ Ex-Expert Network Consultant Pleads Guilty in Insider Case [WSJ] $$$ TCI is trying to guilt the FSA into forcing Lloyds to redeem TCI's holdings of Lloyds contingent capital bonds at above-market prices [FT] $$$ Homeowner Aid Boosts Big Banks [WSJ] $$$ World's population is 17 million tons overweight [MSNBC] $$$ Do you have plans on July 17? Do you fancy yourself a poker player? A really good poker player? Do you think you could beat David Einhorn, even if he’s working the table like it's Lehman Brothers circa 2007/2008? Do you think it would not be so awkward that the two of you could then enjoy a meal together and talk shop after which he picks up the tab? If David's not your thing, do you think you could envision yourself in the same scenario but with Bill Ackman? If you answered yes to most of the above and also consider yourself a fan of humanity, helping others and all that jazz, you should most definitely clear your schedule next Wednesday and sign up for a World Poker Tournament benefiting the Rewarding Achievement (REACH) program, which was co-founded by Bill Ackman and Whitney Tilson and gives inner-city high school students academic support and scholarships for passing AP exams. The event is taking place at Gotham Hall in New York and Einhorn (your competition) will be playing, as will Ackman and Tilson. Prizes for winners include the aforementioned meal (a lunch), with Bill, David or Seth Klarman, five nights at a “world-class private beach home in Lamu, Kenya,” a private poker lesson with 2011 WSOP bracelet winner and 2011 WPT Player of the Year, Andy Frankenberger and more. Alternatively, if you’re not one for cards but still want to help kids, you can also just register for the cocktail hour. $$$ Would you be interested in a job as a credit team director at a distressed-focused private equity firm in New York? What if I told you it's at Patriarch Partners? [DBCC, also available] $$$ Likelihood of Grexit Still 50-75%: Citi [CNBC] $$$ Alvarez Says Fed Hasn’t Seen Other JPMorgan Risk Problems [Bloomberg] $$$ Millionaire Parents Say Their Kids Are Unfit to Inherit [CNBC] $$$ New Jersey Man Allegedly Calls 911 From His Pillow Fort, Demands To Speak To Tim Tebow [DeadSpin]

$$$ A Nobel Prize for Market Design [Digitopoly via @Counterparties] $$$ 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]

$$$ Facebook Falls To Record As Lockup End Frees Shares [Bloomberg] $$$ Best Buy Founder Presses Case for Takeover Talks [DealBook] $$$ Hall Of Fame Football Coach Donnan Accused In Ponzi Scheme [Bloomberg] $$$ Dealpolitik: Muddied Waters Complicate Focus Media Buyout [Deal Journal] $$$ “Struck By Blow Dart”: A Brief Index Of Recent Terrible Events Involving Joggers [Deadspin] $$$ Macquarie Capital is looking for a restructuring and M&A vice president in New York, if you're available [DBCC] $$$ BlackRock Tiptoes Into Spain's Sovereign Debt [WSJ] $$$ Bain Capital was good at investing when Mitt Romney ran it [PEHub] $$$ Romney Says He Paid at Least 13% Taxes for 10 Years [CNBC] $$$ New Ray Gun Used to Fight High Sea Pirates [CNBC]

$$$ ECB thinks the unthinkable, action likely weeks away [Reuters] $$$ Private equity assets hit record $3tn [FT] $$$ Economy Tests Harvard [WSJ] $$$ Guy seeks attention by pretending he manipulated Libor [Boston Review, related] $$$ Chivalry On Sinking Ships Only A Myth, Researchers Find [Bloomberg] $$$ Macquarie Research is looking for a REIT research associate in New York [DBCC] $$$ A Berlusconi Comeback Is Last Thing Italy Needs [Bloomberg] $$$ Here you will find a Fox Business segment on The Decathlon featuring an NBA vs. Wall Street vertical jump contest [FBN] $$$ Here you will find an argument for replacing the uncomfortable business metaphor "opening the kimono" with "putting a ruler to the dick" [Mathbabe] $$$ "Many scientists don’t like to talk about shark sex," but some do [LRB]

$$$ Buffett: My Succession Plans Have Not Changed [CNBC] $$$ Meredith Whitney upgraded Citigroup [MarketBeat] $$$ Should you worry that all the big banks are growing their assets? [DealBook] $$$ Canadian approached for top BoE job [FT] $$$ Sallie Krawchek: "I've thought a lot about the issue of stereotypes, particularly on Wall Street. I can't count the number of times I have seen men slam something on a table, even throw something. You sort of do a mental eye roll and move on. I can count on one hand — on one finger — the number of tantrums I've seen a woman have. As she was having it, I remember thinking to myself, Bitch." [Marie Claire] $$$ The Ira Sohn Investment Idea Contest seeks to identify a great investment idea to help benefit children with cancer. This year's contest will be judged by an incredible group including Michael Price, Bill Ackman, David Einhorn, Joel Greenblatt and Seth Klarman. The winner will be selected based on the judges’ determination of the most compelling investment idea submitted with a one-year horizon, and will then get to present their investment idea at the Ira Soch Investment Conference itself in May. $$$ Morgan Stanley is looking for a market risk regulatory capital vice president [DBCC] $$$ London Goes After Trading in Yuan [WSJ] $$$ Bank of America Said to Put Foreign Wealth Management Unit Up for Sale [DealBook] $$$ Derivatives Lobby Has U.S. Regulators on the Run [Bloomberg / Roger Lowenstein] $$$ "We are in a depression, but not because we don’t know how to remedy the problem. We are in a depression because it is our revealed preference, as a polity, not to remedy the problem. We are choosing continued depression because we prefer it to the alternatives." [Interfluidity] $$$ "A Michigan lottery winner was charged with fraud Tuesday for collecting food stamps and public health insurance despite pocketing a $735,000 jackpot."

$$$ Eurozone deal over bank bailout in doubt [FT] $$$ 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]

$$$ Author of the spectacularly wrong ‘Dow 36,000′ has new thoughts on the stock market [Wonkblog] $$$ Fitch Downgrades Italy's Credit Ratings [WSJ] $$$ SEC: Goldman cannot ignore proposal to split chairman, CEO roles [Reuters] $$$ Talk of US high-yield 'bubble' is overdone [Reuters] $$$ "Even as some venture-capital firms have become skittish after the disappointing initial public offerings of Facebook, Groupon Inc. and Zynga Inc. - all of which were venture-backed — a number of hedge funds, private-equity firms and other asset-management firms are pouring money into closely held startups." [WSJ] $$$ George W. Bush’s Art Teacher Says He’s Painted 50 Dogs [Gawker] $$$ A boutique multi-strategy hedge fund in San Francisco is looking for a C++ programmer to help build an HFT platform [DBCC] $$$ AIG to Redeem $1.1 Billion of Debt in Path to Dividend [Bloomberg] $$$ "The Fed said the median loss from commercial and industrial loans across the 18 banks tested would be 6.5 percent under the severely adverse scenario. But Goldman's loss would be a stunning 49.6 percent." [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ Identifying Term Interbank Loans from Fedwire Payments Data [FRBNY] $$$ S&P Ratings Debate Doesn’t Show Fraud, Peterson Says [Bloomberg] $$$ Q. Do you ever throw your weight around during Internet arguments? Like, "I knew you were going to compare me to Hitler because I AM MIKE GODWIN." A. I never do that. [DI]

$$$ Google Shares Fall on Premature Earnings [WSJ] $$$ Google and the send button ... [footnoted] $$$ "To be fair, we released our earnings yesterday afternoon on Google Plus." [@PendingLarry via Deal Journal] $$$ Smallest Stock Traders Hardest Hit as Commissions Decline [Bloomberg] $$$ Blackstone Swings to Profit of $622 Million in 3rd Quarter [DealBook] $$$ "Americans who say they work 75 hours a week tend to be exaggerating by 25 hours." [Qz] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a Sales Training Program Manager for their iShares division in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ Sprint Nextel assumes majority stake in Clearwire [Reuters] $$$ In Insider Trading Case, Drawing In David Ganek [DealBook] $$$ Ex-GE Bankers Jailed in Rigged Muni Bond Case [CNBC] $$$ William Cohan on Greg Smith: "He conned Grand Central Publishing, which paid him a reported $1.5 million for his 'tell-all' book about how the culture at Goldman Sachs had deteriorated during his 12-year tenure into something he no longer recognized, when really Goldman has always been a stinging scorpion. (Disclosure: my wife is the editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing, although she had nothing to do with editing Smith's book, and neither of us has read it.)" [Bloomberg] $$$ Republicans Pulling Money Out of Soup Kitchen Where Paul Ryan Pretended to Wash Dishes [DI]