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

$$$ Greece drops demand to ease bailout terms [FT] $$$ The NYSE Gets Its Very Own Dark Pool [MarketBeat] $$$ The Strange Takeover Limbo of CVR [DealBook] $$$ Countrywide won influence by giving House members discounts, report says [AP] $$$ Jon Ronson talks to rich people, middle-class people, and poor people [GQ] $$$ The guy who finished ahead of David Einhorn in the $1mm buy-in One Drop poker tournament was beaten up shortly afterwards [Poker News Daily] $$$ A German university is suing a business student for lost income because he finished his bachelors and masters degrees in only 20 months [UPI] $$$ A top institution is looking for a VP level structured credit trader in New York [DBCC] $$$ Euro the big loser after central banks intervene [FT] $$$ Irish Bill Sale Marks End Of Drought As Spain Yields Rise [Bloomberg] $$$ Why not have variable-rate mortgages with fixed payments but variable amortization periods? [American Banker] $$$ Traded assets are more volatile than non-traded assets, NGDP targeting edition [Noahpinion] $$$ Alphonse "Buddy" Fletcher's wife is the Kleiner Perkins partner suing them for gender discrimination [Term Sheet] $$$ An Alternative Living Will for Banks [Paperwell]

$$$ Man Accused of Plot to Blow Up Federal Reserve Bank of New York [NYT] $$$ 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]

$$$ NGDP-targeting inventor Scott Sumner is celebrating [Money Illusion] $$$ The Fed will buy over half of all new agency MBS [Sober Look] $$$ Ray Dalio describes the machine [Free Exchange, CFR] $$$ Bank complexity makes Sally Krawcheck "weep blood out of [her] eyes" [DealBook] $$$ Greece to Lease 40 Uninhabited Islands to Reduce Debt [Bloomberg] $$$ Efficient Markets Theory Can Save You From A Grizzly Death By Botched Penile Enlargement [Slate] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a director of global mobility in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ Deutsche Bank urges rivals to share IT [FT] $$$ Fairfax Case Against Morgan Keegan, Exis Dismissed [Bloomberg] $$$ The Volcker Rule's ban on short-term prop trading will prevent AIG from buying and holding long-term assets for some reason [DealBook] $$$ You only have six more months to buy giant sodas in New York City [NYT] $$$ "The Author in Fancy Dress as a Side of Bacon, designed by himself, which took the First Prize of Forty Guineas at the Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball, April 1894." [Retronaut]

$$$ European Economic Outlook Dims Amid Leaders’ Impasse [NYT] $$$ U.S. Bank Lending Falls, Profits Rise [WSJ] $$$ Buffett’s Goldman Deal Is Topic in an Insider Case [DealBook] $$$ Study Finds Germans Incapable of Enjoying Life [Der Spiegel] $$$ This happened: New York nun asks Blankfein if he'll hire her, Blankfein says "I don't think I couldoutbid your current employer" #godswork— Tracy Alloway (@tracyalloway) May 24, 2012 $$$ Man who formerly claimed to be a "certified member of the quiet society of pimps" and asked to be certified as an expert witness in pimpology now says "I was a failure as a pimp. I was a much better car salesman, I was a much better telemarketer, I was much better when I was selling mortgages by phone. I really wasn't very good at it. A lot of it was exaggerated." [NYP, earlier] $$$ A leading electronic trading platform is looking for a CDS / fixed income sales associate [DBCC] $$$ Big European funds dump euro assets [FT] $$$ Facebook market makers' losses total at least $100 million [Reuters] $$$ This is some enjoyable Eliot Spitzer schadenfreude [Concurring Opinions] $$$ "The festival features 10 different types of bacon, plus all things bacon — bacon sausage, bacon meatballs, bacon doughnuts, bacon butterscotch cupcakes — even a walking slab of bacon! There’s a bacon-eating contest, bacon lectures and a bacon song contest — and yes, there’s a crowning of the Bacon Queen! Contestants are asked questions like their favorite memory of bacon, their favorite kind of bacon and their favorite way to cook bacon (the most common answer is “naked,” incidentally)." [CNBC] $$$ Unabomber lists self as ‘prisoner’ in Harvard directory [Boston Globe]

$$$ ECB Seen Favoring Bond Buying Over Bank Loans [Bloomberg] $$$ Swiss overhaul unsettles asset managers [FT] $$$ Homeowners give boost to US banks [FT] $$$ Treasury: Taxpayers Likely to Profit From Financial Rescue Programs [WSJ] $$$ Independent traders staged a walkout in one of CME Group Inc.'s CME busiest interest-rate futures pits, protesting a large, privately negotiated trade a day earlier that they claimed was unfair. The action by several dozen floor traders, which lasted about an hour, made prices harder to come by for some contracts used by banks and hedge funds to protect against shifts in some interest rates and threatened to deplete volumes in the market. ... Thursday's trade "was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back" for the protesters, said David Stein, an independent trader who was standing outside the pit Friday and who helped organize the protest. Mr. Stein said allowing privately negotiated block trades was "anticompetitive" and "un-American." [WSJ] $$$ A broker-dealer is looking for someone to trade equities in Dallas [DBCC] $$$ Obama likely paid higher tax rate than Romney in 2011 [Reuters] $$$ "The Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing a proposal to create the first diamond-backed exchange-traded fund." [NYT] $$$ Facebook Acquires Mobile Marketer Tagtile [CNBC] $$$ Analysts Worry Gucci Will ‘Underperform’ Luxury Peers as PPR’s Stock Falls [Fashionista] $$$ Bloomberg unveils Muppets as NYC ambassadors [AP] $$$ “Hardcore Porn” Mistakenly Interrupts “Good Morning America” Broadcast In Two Towns [The JaneDough]

$$$ Mortgage Lenders See Tighter Credit Under New U.S. Rules [Bloomberg] $$$ Draghi Defends Bond Buying Program [WSJ] $$$ Buffett looksfor big-ticket acquisition [FT] $$$ "European sovereign CDS tends to be priced in dollars, for instance, but CSAs might allow counterparties to post less valuable currencies (such as euros) to one another. This should theoretically alter the price of the contract materially – not least because of the correlation between the value of the euro and European sovereigns – but it appears few banks fully price in these risks." [IFR] $$$ Frank Lloyd Wright designed a doghouse; the dog hated it [Letters of Note] $$$ New Forests is looking for a senior financial analyst in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ The Germans want to inspect the gold they store in the Fed's vaults, but John Carney has some MMT to lay on them [NetNet] $$$ "What do prefunded bank deposit guarantee schemes invest in? ... [T]hey buy the bonds of, or make deposits at, banks they guarantee. In one case it is rumoured that a scheme was reluctant to take over a bank because their own assets were deposited at it and they did not want to take losses." [DEM] $$$ Donald Trump is "very honored to have gotten President Obama to release his long form birth certificate, or whatever it was that he released," has moved on to another stunt [@realDonaldTrump] $$$ Superman quit his job to become a blogger [Mashable via MR]

$$$ Merkel's Dilemma: Risk Euro Zone or Her Government [WSJ] $$$ S.E.C. Pays Out First Whistle-Blower Reward [DealBook] $$$ Fed probes RBS over dealings with Iran [FT] $$$ Barry Diller's IAC offers $300 million for About.com [Reuters] $$$ Fifty Shades of Grey Is Now the Only Hope Our Economy Has [DI] $$$ Red Lobster Waitress Attacked For Filling Water Glasses Too Often At St. Louis Location [HuffPo] $$$ A broker-dealer is looking for experienced emerging market credit salespeople in Stamford [DBCC] $$$ Subprime Whodunit A Case of Semantics [WSJ, related] $$$ Best Buy Suspends Profit Outlook & Buybacks After Ending Deal Talks [Reuters] $$$ Sometimes VCs sell stock, deal with it [Fred Wilson] $$$ "Prince Harry tried to end Ryan Lochte’s championship reign Monday, duking it out with the Olympic hero in an after-hours race at a boozy Las Vegas pool party." [NYDN] $$$ The Koch brothers' less famous younger brother built a fake Western town for some reason [Gawker]