$$$ Judge Approves Payout to MF Global Customers $$$ Dell Buyout Deal Could Come as Soon as Monday [Reuters] $$$ US banks squeezed as mortgage profits hit [FT] $$$ High Drama at CFTC: The Battle Over Swaps and Futures [BBW] $$$ UBS Set to Classify Bond-Buying Clients as 'Aggressive' Investors [FBN] $$$ "We were served water, at exactly the right cool temperature, yet without ice cubes"; also Bill Gates was there [MR] $$$ Aston Martin in Barn With Mouse Nest May Fetch $300,000 [Bloomberg] $$$ A highly respected bank is looking for a senior associate and a VP/director to originate, structure, and market credit-based structured products in New York [DBCC] $$$ SNS Nationalized in Netherlands After Real Estate Losses [Bloomberg] $$$ Swap mis-sellingand the dark heart of the City [Telegraph] $$$ Banks slow crisis money repayment to ECB [Reuters] $$$ Twitter nears $10 billion valuation [Fortune] $$$ Sociology of the evolution of electronic trading [Jayanth R. Varma] $$$ Half of students in Harvard cheating scandal required to withdraw from the college [Boston.com]

$$$ Bernanke Says Fiscal Cliff Fix May Bring ‘Very Good’ Year [Bloomberg] $$$ The Feds Are Closing In on Steve Cohen [DI / Kevin Roose] $$$ How gaming Libor became business as usual [Reuters] $$$ Xstrata Shareholders Back Deal Without Retention Packages [WSJ] $$$ "Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns?” [What If?] $$$ An elite boutique M&A firm is looking for an analyst with 1-2 years of investment banking experience [DBCC] $$$ US banks warn on money transfer rule [FT] $$$ Here you will find smart people attempting to understand Nassim Nicholas Taleb without reading him [Deus Ex Macchiato] $$$ Map: Where the Emotionally Challenged Live [BBW] $$$ Mitt Romney Is at Disneyland, Doing His Thing [Gawker]

$$$ Barclays to shrink controversial tax unit [FT] $$$ Glencore Details Final Offer for Xstrata [WSJ] $$$ Nasdaq unwavering on paybacks for faulty Facebook launch [Reuters] $$$ Tim Geithner ran a pretty good triathlon this weekend [DealBook] $$$ Goldman Goes Unpaid in El Paso Case [Deal Journal] $$$ William Morris Endeavor Entertainment is suing Amanda Drury for its commissions [Hollywood Reporter] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a marketing associate for private clients in New Jersey [DBCC] $$$ California wants the DOJ to stop hedge funds from threatening cities who want to use eminent domain to rewrite mortgages [Reuters] $$$ Everything you could possibly want to know about IOER [FTAV] $$$ Deutsche Bank Chiefs to Unveil Plan [WSJ] $$$ Harvard Football Said to Risk Losing Players in Cheating Probe [Bloomberg] $$$ "A jury on Monday awarded casino mogul Steve Wynn $20 million in his slander case against 'Girls Gone Wild' founder Joe Francis, who claimed the creator of some of Las Vegas' most upscale resorts threatened to kill him over a gambling debt." [NYP]

$$$ Excited for Whale day? [Reuters] $$$ Banks’ Libor costs may hit $22bn [FT] $$$ Bain Starts Raising Buyout Fund With $6 Billion Target [Bloomberg] $$$ PFG Employee Files Lawsuit for Wages so he could afford the new leash, harness and doggie bed he had bought for Apple, his terrier mix [FINS] $$$ Piggy bank has a new meaning in a town east of Vienna after a surveillance camera caught a wild pig on a night foray to a local branch of one of Austria’s financial institutions. The Austria Press Agency reports that the inquisitive porker managed to push open a locked sliding glass door of a bank in Hainburg an der Donau to make its way inside. After looking around, it left the same way it came without causing significant damage, with the door locking behind it. [AP] $$$ A prominent broker-dealer is looking for a junior non-agency mortgage trader [DBCC] $$$ Richard Posner: Why There Are Too Many Patents in America [Atlantic] $$$ Goldman recruits former Treasury spokesman [FT] $$$ In spite of the Barclays scandal, LIBOR product continues to do well [Sober Look] $$$ Here you will find NSFW pictures of dinosaur loving [Daily Mail]

$$$ Spain to spend billions on bank rescue [FT] $$$ Facebook Kicks Off Roadshow With Zuckerberg in Hoodie [WSJ] $$$ Shareholder Calls for Chesapeake to Be Open to Offers [DealBook] $$$ How venture capital is broken [Reuters / Felix Salmon] $$$ The "Gentleman Groper" was only a gentleman, not a groper [NYP, earlier] $$$ Stocks Could Sell Off but Not Swoon: Technicians [CNBC] $$$ How would you like to be a senior derivatives trader at Aegon? It's in Baltimore. [DBCC] $$$ Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation [NBER] $$$ An FDA for financial innovation remains a terrible idea [John Cochrane] $$$ Yahoo Board Is Said to Meet Today, Discussing CEO Scott Thompson [Bloomberg] $$$ Dinosaur flatulence, belching may have contributed to warming Earth, killing them off [AP]

$$$ Goldman to Stagger Managing Director Class Starting After 2013 [Deal Journal] $$$ "Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson's Gold Fund tumbled 18 percent last month when gold and gold mining stocks slid further ..." [Reuters] $$$ Dow Average Rises to Record as Jobless Claims Decline [Bloomberg] $$$ ECB sticks to its monetary guns [FT] $$$ Facebook Unveils Sweeping Changes to News Feed [WSJ] $$$ Columbia students have been stealing Nutella [NYT] $$$ A company is looking for a portfolio manager to join a commercial real estate team in New York [DBCC] $$$ For mortgage masters, 2013 is a bond-picker's market [Reuters] $$$ Inconsistent Risk Assessment by Banks Isn't That Bad [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ Want a Secure Retirement? Move to Slovenia [NBC] $$$ "The US Government must have stolen half of a glass of water." Take The Zero-Hedge Test [Cassandra Does Tokyo] $$$ Person laughs at own joke [BI]

$$$ Euro Zone Economy Shrinks, Darkening Outlook [WSJ] $$$ Greece seeks two-year austerity extension [FT] $$$ Knight Upgrade Triggered Old Trading System, Big Losses [WSJ] $$$ Goldman executives win dismissal of mortgage, TARP lawsuit [Reuters] $$$ Reservoir poised to seed ex-Goldman trader Buck Ratchford with $200M+ [AR-Alpha, related] $$$ You should really be drinking more at work [Economist] $$$ United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care [Bob Sutton] $$$ A Chicago hedge fund is looking for a senior quantitative strategist to develop commodity futures high frequency trading strategies [DBCC] $$$ In Ski-Resort Bankruptcy, FDIC Tries Role of Lender [WSJ] $$$ Steve Cohen, George Soros Purchased Facebook Shares [Deal Journal] $$$ Rakoff better able to review SEC-Citigroup pact [Reuters] $$$ BATS Proposes Plan to Offer Discounts on Retail Orders [Reuters] $$$ Biden Says Romney Would Put Middle Class ‘Back In Chains’ [Bloomberg] $$$ The head of Hungary's far-right anti-Semitic party found out he's Jewish [AP]

$$$ S&P, Fitch face trial over Italy downgrades [Reuters] $$$ Kodak Reaches Financing Deal With Bondholders [WSJ] $$$ "Investors in the US are marking down the prices of securities backed by mortgages written before the financial crisis, anticipating that the re-election of President Barack Obama presages a new effort to help distressed borrowers refinance their loans." [FT] $$$ Jon Ronson: "I had Nostradamus-like sense that things were going to go wrong in the credit industry. And I became obsessed with trying to tell that story. ... But I couldn't do it. And the reason was because I kept on meeting people who worked in the credit industry and they were really boring. I couldn't make them light up the page. And, as I said in The Psychopath Test, if you want to get away with wielding true malevolent power, be boring." [The Awl] $$$ "Armed with camcorders and Velcro, a group of activists hope to prove that mountain lions call Connecticut home despite assurances by the state that the big cats are out-of-towners." [Stamford Advocate] $$$ Consider buying a signed print of Geoffrey Raymond's Ina Drew painting [Annotated Paintings] $$$ LLOYD! [Sandy Sucks] $$$ A major insurance company is looking for quants to cover fixed income products, fixed income derivatives and structured products in New York [DBCC] $$$ Coal CEO Prays For Deliverance from Obama, Fires Workers [Slate] $$$ Exchanges Route Away From NYSE After Trading Glitch [WSJ] $$$ AIG keen to sell bank, expand in mortgages: CEO [Reuters] $$$ Baby Boomers Blunt Fed Easing While Saving for Retirement [Bloomberg] $$$ Businessweek criticized for poll on hot female b-school students [TBN] $$$ Mary-Kate Olsen Shares PDA with Older Boyfriend Olivier Sarkozy [toofab]