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

$$$ Boehner, Obama Exchange New Cliff Proposals [WSJ] $$$ 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]

$$$ ICE Said to Be in Talks to Merge With NYSE Euronext [DealBook] $$$ Report Says Libor-Tied Losses at Fannie, Freddie May Top $3 Billion [WSJ] $$$ Treasury to Sell G.M. Stake Within 15 Months [DealBook] $$$ All your bank frauds in one place [Counterparties] $$$ Ben Affleck may be running for Senate in Massachusetts [Politico via DI] $$$ A major energy trading firm is looking for two quantitative developers to join its data driven trading team [DBCC] $$$ "Bank of America Corp. has amassed $64 billion of mortgages that are at least six months delinquent and have yet to enter foreclosure, more than twice the amount held by its four largest competitors combined." [Bloomberg] $$$ Money Funds Brace for Flood [WSJ] $$$ Greece faces ‘make or break’ year [FT] $$$ Holiday videos from First Round Capital and FT Alphaville [Pando Daily, FTAV]

$$$ Spain's Unemployment Jumps, Deepening Crisis [WSJ] $$$ "... the McClendon-[X] deal raises a number of concerns, some analysts said," for any X [Reuters, earlier] $$$ "Being violation-free alone does not guarantee that a public company or registered entity will not face the wrath of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Enforcement, its director, Robert Khuzami, told Thomson Reuters Tuesday." Good to keep 'em guessing. [Reuters] $$$ How to Leak to Gawker Without (Hopefully) Getting Caught, usefulness not limited to Gawker [Gawker] $$$ Who Was the Third Person in Bret Easton Ellis and Rielle Hunter’s (Aborted) Cocaine-Induced Threesome? [NYO] $$$ BNP Paribas would like to find an emerging markets equities analyst for its Boston office, if you know anyone [DBCC] $$$ Forget Bailouts, European Banks Needs Bail-Ins: Fitch [CNBC] $$$ After Quiet Years, British Regulator Gets Tough on Abuses [DealBook] $$$ Lazard profit drops on costs, but still beats Street [Reuters] $$$ Kyle Bass' Japan short gets the B-school case study treatment [AR-Alpha] $$$ Banks to Meet With Fed on Derivatives Rule [WSJ] $$$ Paul Ryan Suddenly Decides He Hates Ayn Rand [DI]

$$$ Geithner plans financial crisis book [CNN, earlier] $$$ Former Top Media Banker Sues Los Angeles and 2 Police Officers [DealBook, earlier] $$$ LionTree Advisors zooms up the M&A league tables [Bloomberg] $$$ "In his closely watched annual letter, Tilson said his Kase Fund - formerly T2 Partners before he split with Glenn Tongue last year - lost 1.7 percent compared to the Standard & Poor's 500 total return of 16 percent. He attributed the weakness to a highly correlated market that made divergences difficult to find." [CNBC] $$$ Ask Matt Taibbi anything on Reddit tomorrow [RS] $$$ Employment Agency Apologizes For Hooking Teen Up with Brothel Job [Gawker] $$$ PSEG is looking for a quantitative analyst to join its Energy Resource and Trade business in Newark [DBCC] $$$ RBS didn't admit to systematically lowering Libor during the crisis [Bloomberg] $$$ TIPS spreads remain correlated with equities [Money Illusion] $$$ Money Market Funds Intermediation, Bank Instability, and Contagion [FRBNY] $$$ The Risk Ownership Society [Dissent / Steve Randy Waldman] $$$ Christie Calls Doctor Who Raised Weight Concerns a ‘Hack’ [Bloomberg]