$$$ Germany, Netherlands Rating Outlooks Cut To Negative By Moody’s [Bloomberg] $$$ Congress Presses New York Fed for More Details on Rate-Rigging Scandal [DealBook] $$$ China bids $15bn for Canada’s Nexen [FT] $$$ John Paulson Said To See 50% Chance That Euro Will Fail $$$ Bane's Plan to Bankrupt Batman Doesn't Make Any Sense [The Atlantic] $$$ A top bank is looking for a consumer/food sector M&A vice president or senior associate [DBCC] $$$ Citigroup Chairman O'Neill Takes Hands-On Approach [WSJ] $$$ An Ackman Protégé Plans to Strike Out on His Own [DealBook] $$$ Apple is a champion of planned obsolescence [Reuters] $$$ Snoop Dogg to Release Reggae Album as Snoop Lion [Gawker]

$$$ S&P cuts Spain credit rating to BBB-minus, near junk [Reuters] $$$ 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]

$$$ In Victory for Google, U.S. Ends Antitrust Investigation [NYT] $$$ Scandal Hits Greek Tourism Agency [WSJ] $$$ Fairytale of New York — in pari passu, anyway [FTAV] $$$ John McAfee Pimped Out 29 ‘Pillow Talk Masters’ to Spy on Belize: Here’s What He Found [NYO] $$$ Russia grants citizenship to Depardieu [FT, outstanding photo] $$$ A little bit of adolescent pushback, as teens begin to express their individuality, is good, said Leslie Whitten Baughman, a child therapist with a practice in Sacramento. But drugging your parents "would not be a healthy level of rebellion." [Sac Bee] $$$ A top electronic trading firm is looking for a C++ developer in LA [DBCC] $$$ Transocean to pay $1.4 billion for role in BP oil spill [Reuters] $$$ "Loblaw Buying Canada Safeway No Pipe Dream in Spinoff" [Bloomberg!] $$$ The Macroeconomics of Middle Earth [WCI] $$$ Why Are Dogs Racist? Canine Experts Speak [Gawker] $$$ Drew Magary profiles Snoop Lion (né Snoop Dogg) [GQ]

Lockhart sees rate hike in 2015; "How to Lose $667 Million in Bond Trades Without Trying"; Bitcoin; Petco deal; "Rapper Snoop Dogg starts site focused on weed"; and more.

$$$ Boehner, Obama Exchange New Cliff Proposals [WSJ] $$$ Greece's lenders left to plug 450 mln euro hole after buyback [Reuters] $$$ Dragon Systems Founders Take Goldman to Trial Over Advice [Bloomberg] $$$ For employees of Bloomberg LP, a megabonus deferred [CapitalNY] $$$ Cayman Island Police Arrest Premier Over Credit Card Use [Bloomberg] $$$ An institutional equity research, sales and trading firm is looking to hire a senior biotech equity research analyst in Greenwich [DBCC] $$$ "Traders wanting to place bets on the U.S. Consumer Demand Index — a monthly reading of household spending sentiment — can now pay to get the data before anyone else." [MarketBeat] $$$ Not All Companies Would Welcome a Lower Tax Rate [DealBook] $$$ Argentina debt case weakens incentives to settle [Reuters] $$$ There's a dinosaur named after President Obama v [Fox]

$$$ Got half an hour? Watch Facebook's retail roadshow [Facebook] $$$ Wall Street doesn't know how to value private equity firms [Fortune / Dan Primack] $$$ Documents allege HSBC money-laundering lapses [Reuters] $$$ UBS investors protest against pay plan [FT] $$$ Osama bin Laden's views on investing jihad money [FTAV] $$$ Pimco is looking for a digital marketing specialist in New York [DBCC] $$$ Wall Street Wants More From the JOBS Act [DealBook] $$$ Bank of America to Sell Hearst Tower for $250 Million [Bloomberg] $$$ Krugman Wishes He Were Wrong Amid EU Austerity Backlash [Bloomberg] $$$ The Secret of Ben Bernanke's Beard [Atlantic] $$$ This has no conceivable financial hook, but [The Awl] $$$ Lost Pet Parakeet Found Its Way Home By Telling the Police Its Home Address [Gizmodo]

$$$ Ben Bernanke is pretty sure the thing he's doing is not a horrible idea [FRB] $$$ Four Charged in U.K. Insider-Trading Probe [WSJ] $$$ Hedge Fund Jana Partners Takes Aim at Agrium [WSJ] $$$ In Goldman Programmer Case, a Way Around Double Jeopardy [DealBook] $$$ "The idea is that while equity owners - management - are like owners of call options on the assets of a firm (aka the Merton Model), banks are like down-and-out call option owners, because if their book equity goes down too far they will be forced into a fire-sale or liquidated by regulators. This is a barrier option, and has the interesting property that its vega - the derivative of the value of the equity with respect to asset volatility - is negative when it gets close in value to its barrier." [Falkenblog] $$$ Looking at cats on the internet makes you more productive at playing games on the internet [Wonkblog] $$$ Shia LaBeouf rescues sea lion [tv3.ie] $$$ Citi Capital Advisors is looking for a director of hedge funds risk management in New York [DBCC] $$$ DVA, one half of Dealbreaker will miss you [WSJ] $$$ LIBOR may converge with CD rates [Sober Look] $$$ Equity Trading and the Allocation of Market Data Revenue [FRB] $$$ "A Miami-bound American Airlines flight made an emergency landing at JFK when a row of passenger seats became unbolted and dangerously slid around like a carnival ride ..." [NYP] $$$ In urban Taiwan, indoor shrimp fishing is booming [LAT] $$$ "Queens teacher suing city claiming he was beaten up by a first-grader"; the pictures are superb [NYP]

$$$ Gawker acquires semi-public audited financials of Bain Capital funds, orgasms all over them [Gawker, related] $$$ 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]