Third Avenue meltdown; Trader vs CFTC; "​How I Get Men to Give Me Money for No Reason as a Financial Dominatrix"; and more.

$$$ Bernanke Says Fiscal Cliff Fix May Bring ‘Very Good’ Year [Bloomberg] $$$ 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]

$$$ Tucker denies intervening on Libor [FT] $$$ SAC’s Cohen Joins Loeb Starting Reinsurer For Capital [Bloomberg] $$$ "My best guess is that the LIBOR manipulation that went on before the financial crisis had a small effect on human suffering and its not clear whether it increased human suffering or decreased it. My best guess is that the LIBOR manipulation during the crisis reduced human suffering." [Modeled Behavior] $$$ "I do not understand why physicists are quite happy to say that the gravitational constant in appropriate SI units is 6.67384 ± 0.00080, but in finance and economics we are unwilling to say that the price of an asset is 103.23 ± 0.65." [Jayanth Varma] $$$ Employment Seeker Mistakes Nic Cage JPEG for CV, Inadvertently Sends Out Greatest Job Application Ever [Gawker] $$$ Morgan Stanley wants a FIG banking VP, if that's your thing [DBCC] $$$ New CFPB rules to simplify mortgage disclosure are 1,099 pages long [Kid Dynamite] $$$ Patriot Coal Files For Bankruptcy Protection In New York [Bloomberg] $$$ FN100 Most Influential: Regulators tighten grip on industry [FN] $$$ The New York Times Gets a ‘Rare Glimpse’ Quite Often [DI]

Forex Tumult good for banks; "How 300 Emails Led to a Summer Job on Wall Street"; Snow Kone Joe vs. Mr. Ding-A-Ling Ice Cream Truck; and more.

$$$ Fed Is 'Playing a Game With Us:' Pimco's Gross [CNBC] $$$ 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]