$$$ RBS speeds up investment arm split [Telegraph] $$$ How much value does the finance industry create? [Noahpinion] $$$ Leverage can increase volatility and diversification can reduce risk [WSJ] $$$ Why London hedge fund wives don’t do Switzerland [EFC] $$$ Cheese fire causes traffic meltdown in Norway tunnel [Reuters] $$$ Registration for the 5th annual Decathlon starts today! This year’s competition takes place on July 28th, and also includes monthly “Throw Downs” where all registered Decathletes compete in 1-2 Decathlon events and collect charity bets on head-to-head match-ups (40 yard dash! Pull-ups! Bench press!). All proceeds benefit the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. $$$ A hedge fund in New York is looking for a quantitative macro strategist/economist [DBCC] $$$ Wells Fargo Lifts Quarterly Dividend 14% [FBN] $$$ Deutsche Bank Said to Be Asked by Bafin to Simulate Split [Bloomberg] $$$ Schroders Worker Among FSA Insider-Trading Probe Arrests [Bloomberg] $$$ Is seducing executives in order to get and trade on inside information illegal? [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ ‘Your Cat Is Not Innocent’: New Zealand Man Launches Campaign to Rid Country of Cats [Gawker]

$$$ Fed Officials Weigh More Stimulus, Minutes Show [WSJ] $$$ Investors get lowest-ever Treasury yields [FT] $$$ Spain steps up austerity amid protests [FT] $$$ San Bernardino becomes third California city seeking bankruptcy [Reuters] $$$ Wall Street Recruiter Suing the City After Being Arrested for Giving Cops the Finger [NYO] $$$ Financier Leon Black Is Mystery Buyer of 'The Scream' [WSJ] $$$ Russell Investment Group is looking for a head of fixed income research in Seattle or London [DBCC] $$$ CME to Open Fund Set Up After MF Global for Peregrine Clients [Deal Journal] $$$ SEC approves database plan to audit stock trades [Reuters] $$$ Silvio Berlusconi set to run again to become Italian prime minister [Telegraph] $$$ Romney Says He’ll Release 2011 Tax Return When It’s Ready [Bloomberg] $$$ Crazy Clause in McDonald’s’ Olympics Sponsorship Deal Bans All Other Vendors From Selling French Fries to Attendees [Gawker]

$$$ Argentina to Seize Control of Oil Firm [WSJ] $$$ World Bank picks Kim as next head [FT] $$$ Coty Tries to Rally Support for Avon Bid Amid Skepticism [DealBook] $$$ Brazil Cannibal Empanadas: Brazilian Women Murdered, Eaten And Made Into Human Pastries [HuffPo, congrats on the Pulitzer] $$$ PIMCO is looking to fill tax manager positions - in regulated and private funds - in Newport Beach [DBCC] $$$ New York Jets All-Pro D'Brickashaw Ferguson, will be on Wall Street (Exchange Place and Broad Street) at 3:45pm tomorrow as part of The Decathlon 2012. Ferguson will be demonstrating how The Decathlon uses performance-based donating ('charitybets') to raise money to support Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He'll be charitybetting on any Wall Streeter to come out and participate in a Vertical Jump contest. Ferguson will have a Vertec (devise used at the NFL Combine to test vertical leaping) and a few thousand dollars - CASH - to donate to MSKCC. Jump 24-inches, Ferguson donates $100. Jump $26-inches, Ferguson donates $200. And so on and so forth. Registration for The Decathlon 2012 opens Tuesday, April 17th. The event is on Sunday, July 29th at Columbia University's Wien Stadium. $$$ For Two Economists, the Buffett Rule Is Just a Start [NYT] $$$ Following Other People's Stock Picks Just Got Easier but why? [Bloomberg] $$$ What is Carney talking about? [Reuters / Ben Walsh] $$$ ECB staff demand inflation protection [Money Supply] $$$ Rock Out With Your Cock Out: Penis Warmers Are Now a Thing [Fashionista] $$$ Breasts lead to arrest of Anonymous hacker [CNET]

$$$ Fed Is 'Playing a Game With Us:' Pimco's Gross [CNBC] $$$ Bundesbank steps up pressure on Draghi [FT] $$$ Broker departures accelerate at Merrill Lynch [Reuters] $$$ The head of credit trading at Credit Suisse has been fined £210,000 for disclosing confidential information about a forthcoming €2.5bn bond issue after inviting a UK fund manager to “play charades” and guess the identity of the issuer. Nicholas Kyprios encouraged a fund manager who had been invited by Credit Suisse to a roadshow in November 2009 for an unnamed company to guess the issuer, using phrases like “you’re getting warmer”, the Financial Services Authority said. [FT] $$$ How would you like to be a Fixed Income Business Management Analyst for BlackRock in New York? [DBCC] $$$ Goldman Hires a New P.R. Chief $$$ Euro Zone Split over Financial Transaction Tax [Der Spiegel] $$$ Fred Wilpon's lawyers have planned a whole range of distractions for their Madoff trial [WSJ, related] $$$ Robert Lacoursiere, the Paulson & Co. partner who oversaw the $23 billion hedge fund’s team of banking analysts, quit last week after four years to start his own fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. [Bloomberg] $$$ Manhattan madam's 'sidekick' turns herself in, released on $100K bail [NYP]

$$$ UBS’s Orcel Says Investment Bank Revamp Will Take Up to 5 Years [Bloomberg] $$$ American Banks Actually Are Lending Again — to Europe [NetNet] $$$ Brevan Howard on Hiring Spree Makes Comeback in New York [Bloomberg] $$$ Hostess Has Seen 'Flood' of Interest in Its Brands, Lawyer Says [WSJ] $$$ The surprising correlation between a turkey and a short-gamma trader [Peter Brandt] $$$ Fox News Pundit Finds the Silver Lining of Having Almost No Money for Food [DI] $$$ That’s it for us today. Happy Thanksgiving. We hope you all have a great holiday. There will be brief posting/moral support for those working on Friday, and we'll see the rest of you back here on Monday $$$ A New York hedge fund is looking for an experienced quantitative strategist to join their equities team [DBCC] $$$ Senator Warner says deficit talks to be different this time [Reuters] $$$ Olam launches Muddy Waters libel case [FT] $$$ "[CNBC's] audience does not consists mainly of the very rich; rather, it’s the 1 percent wannabees, who imagine that watching many hours of talking heads will somehow let them absorb the secrets of getting rich." [Paul Krugman] $$$ "Fehr and colleagues found that, in one-shot encounters where employment contracts were struck, 51% of principals exploited agents. 'The Marxian idea that power can be used for exploitation is real' they conclude." [Stumbling and Mumbling] $$$ A Very Dramatic Reading of Francisco Dao's Tale of Startup Failure [The Awl] $$$ The co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back will write one of the new Star Wars movies [Hollywood Reporter]

$$$ Germany Takes Hard Line on Spanish Banks $$$ Wall Street pay: Headed up or down? [Unstructured Finance] $$$ Bank CEOs Fear the Fiscal Cliff They Apparently Don’t Understand [DI] $$$ Swaps Rule Sends Wall Street Into Clearing Limbo [Bloomberg] $$$ "One visitor recalls a family ritual: Every night at around 9:30 or 10:00, Mitt and Ann would meet at the foot of their staircase, clasp hands, and escort each other upstairs to the bedroom, in full view of their brood." [TNR] $$$ Tim Tebow Has Officially Trademarked Tebowing [Deadspin] $$$ A global investment bank is looking for a director for Financial Crime Compliance [DBCC] $$$ Cries of abuse grow with use of complex U.S. stock orders [Reuters] $$$ SocGen to Sell Its Greek Bank [WSJ] $$$ Happy birthday Fox Business! [TBN] $$$ "Why does the male nude get no respect?" [WSJ] $$$ The Psychic Friends Network Cannot Predict Its Future [Bloomberg View]

$$$ For Some PFG Customers: 'It's MF Global All Over Again' [WSJ] $$$ Diamond Accused Of Lying After FSA Releases Letter [Bloomberg] $$$ Spain pressed to inflict losses on savers [FT] $$$ Harvard JD/MBAs mostly go into business, rarely into law, almost never into presidenting [NYT] $$$ Bring Back the General Manager [HBR] $$$ Yoga Instructor Fired From Gig at Facebook HQ After Telling Employee Not to Check Facebook During Class [Gawker] $$$ IPOs were filed today for companies named Barking Applications Corporation and Galt Petroleum, Inc. [EDGAR] $$$ A private equity firm in Greenwich is looking for an investment analyst [DBCC] $$$ Fed Should Raise Interest Rates to 2-3 Percent: Einhorn [CNBC] $$$ Blackstone Aims to Shed U.S. Office Portfolio [WSJ] $$$ Passport liquidates materials fund [AR+Alpha] $$$ Fox Business talking head used to work at PFGBest, is sad [MarketBeat] $$$ AMR To Consider Mergers After Studying Financial Outlook [Bloomberg] $$$ The Chaps Olympiad features English fops jousting with umbrellas on bicycles [Telegraph via The Awl]

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