$$$ Spain's Ability to Fund Itself to Be Put to Test Thursday [CNBC] $$$ European Rescue Fund May Face Biggest Test Yet [NYT] $$$ Chesapeake CEO took $1.1 billion in shrouded personal loans [Reuters] $$$ Squam Lake Group: SEC Beware, Money Funds Can Bring System Down [Bloomberg] $$$ A Merrill Lynch trainee was busted for faking a Series 7 score [Forbes] $$$ Dartmouth Student Plans to Sell "Hazing Simulation" for $10 [IvyGate] $$$ Illumina Fends Off Roche’s Hostile Bid [DealBook] $$$ BlackRock Aims to Soothe Concerns on New Trading Platform [MarketBeat] $$$ On the other hand, BlackRock to Shift Business if Moody’s Downgrades Banks [DealBook] $$$ Currency Probes Nip Banks' Profits [WSJ] $$$ This is your chance to audition for commenter roles at a leading Internet concern; openings include "Disbarred lawyer. Provides long and just-slightly incorrect and hasty review of all blog posts regarding the law." [The Awl]

$$$ Got half an hour? Watch Facebook's retail roadshow [Facebook] $$$ 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]

$$$ Dell Founder Said to Weigh Switching to Blackstone Offer [DealBook] $$$ Mortgage Securitizers Didn’t Know Housing Was Going Bust [WSJ] $$$ The case for Cypriot national equity [FTAV] $$$ BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF [Bloomberg] $$$ "Nestled in the shadow of the picturesque southern mountain range Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, home to Ireland’s three highest peaks, Kilgarvan is little more than a blink-and-you-miss-it blip on the busy road between the tourist towns of Killarney and Kenmare," but now you can drive drunk there [NYT] $$$ Sorry for today's technical difficulties. We expect things will be better tomorrow. If they're not, we'll probably be at Dealbroken, so check there too. $$$ Dudley gives first hints of slowing QE3 [FT] $$$ Bernanke Rejects Currency War Charges [WSJ] $$$ "Perhaps if we paid more money we’d have skilled associates." Instead you have bill padding. [DealBook] $$$ Tesla's Elon Musk tweets about big announcement for Thursday [CNET] $$$ "Hiring Richard Fuld is potentially so hazardous, he requires his own risk factor." [Overheard] $$$ The Most Expensive T-Shirt in New York City Costs $91,500.00 [The Awl]

$$$ JPMorgan is the best place to work, according to the Vault Guide [DealBook] $$$ "Morgan Stanley's wealth management chief, Greg Fleming, has just concluded a seven-city tour of the firm’s brokerage offices in an attempt to stem a broker revolt over the company’s new technology system that contains so many glitches that brokers often cannot sign-up new clients." [FBN, earlier] $$$ Ex-Jet Chrebet Among Top Wealth Managers Leaving Morgan Stanley for Barclays [Deal Journal] $$$ A fourth trader under scrutiny in JPM "Whale" probe [Reuters] $$$ "What the ECB is doing, in essence, is setting itself up as the shadow government of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and perhaps Ireland." [Slate / Matt Yglesias] $$$ Court to decide if lap dancing is a tax-exempt art form [USAT] $$$ Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is looking for a suspicious activity monitoring and investigations analyst [DBCC] $$$ Greenhill Expands Capital Advisory Group [DealBook] $$$ Investors are buying California school district bonds [WSJ] $$$ The ‘mystery Libor’ precedent [FTAV] $$$ Why Yes, It Is Time for Homemade Satellites [BBW] $$$ What Famous People Smell Like [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]

$$$ Man Accused of Plot to Blow Up Federal Reserve Bank of New York [NYT] $$$ Europe banking supervisor plan ‘illegal’ [FT] $$$ Prosecutors Seek as Much as Decade in Prison for Gupta [WSJ] $$$ Dealpolitik: What Sprint’s Unusual Deal Structure Means for Competing Bidders [Deal Journal] $$$ ThinkEquity is no more [MarketBeat] $$$ Trying To Do A Cannonball Into A Frozen Swimming Pool Is Not A Good Idea [Deadspin] $$$ A large regional investment bank is looking for two energy company analysts in New York, Houston or Denver [DBCC] $$$ With Flat Profits, Greenhill Misses Earnings Estimates [DealBook] $$$ Och-Ziff hedge fund looks to exit landlord business [Reuters] $$$ What’s An Index Worth? [IndexUniverse] $$$ "The other day, a friend of mine asked me whether CEOs were born or made. I said, 'That’s kind of like asking if Jolly Ranchers are grown or made. CEO is a very unnatural job.'" [Ben Horowitz] $$$ Customers Refuse to Press Charges Against Couple Having Sex on Restaurant Table Because, Hey, Dinner and a Show [Gawker]

$$$ Facebook Earnings Beat; Profit Margin Falls Sharply [CNBC] $$$ U.S. Economy Unexpectedly Contracts in Fourth Quarter [WSJ] $$$ Is Renaissance Technologies Falling off the Mark? [II Alpha] $$$ Draghi Bank of Italy Knew of Monte Paschi Missteps in ’10 [Bloomberg] $$$ New BlackBerry won't have BrickBreaker [DealBook] $$$ Deutsche Bank is looking for a sales officer for trade finance solutions in New York [DBCC] $$$ Venezuela's bonds have had a 14.7% annual return [Bloomberg] $$$ Goldman Sachs braces for bond market blow up [Fortune] $$$ Treasury Posts Losses on TARP Auctions [WSJ] $$$ "What is the problem with Internet trolls? Why do people dislike them so much? Is it just an example of following-the-herd mentality? Some kind of deeper prejudice? A love of bridges? What is the source of this animosity? Why does it perpetuate itself? Where did this prejudice come from?" [The Awl]

$$$ Germany, Netherlands Rating Outlooks Cut To Negative By Moody’s [Bloomberg] $$$ 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]