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

Bond trader bonuses down; SnapChat gets reality check; Bernanke talks easy money; "Groupon Is Selling a Clip-In Manbun"; and more.

$2.15 billion fine for Deutsche; RBC is starting an investment bank in Paris; Dalio, Bernanke and Summers walk into a bar...; "Another woman yelled out her window, ‘Shut your f--ing windows you wh*re!’” the complainant added; and more.

$$$ U.S. To Sell $4.5 Billion In AIG Stock In Public Offering [Bloomberg] $$$ Hiring Climbs but Jobless Rate Ticks Up [WSJ] $$$ Bloomberg wants to develop a Libor alternative and call it Blibor [WSJ] $$$ What's the Exxon Valdez up to these days? [Bloomberg] $$$ "I think there's just something about getting into chlorine water that you just automatically go." - Ryan Lochte [AP] $$$ An investing bank is looking for a Ph.D. quant for their derivatives modeling team, if that's of interest [DBCC] $$$ Or consider supporting a second edition of Doug Henwood's book Wall Street, "the best leftwing book on actually-existing-capitalism that’s been written in the last couple of decades," if that's more your thing [Crooked Timber] $$$ Financial weapons of mass irony [Reuters] $$$ Futures are swaps in reality but not in regulatory arbitrage [Streetwise Professor] $$$ Mustaches keep you safe from radiation [WaPo]

$$$ Fed Minutes Suggest Action Likely [WSJ] $$$ Ainslie Up 20% As Stock Hedge Funds Defy Four-Year Slump $$$ Best Buy shareholders caught in the crossfire [Term Sheet] $$$ FTC Clears Facebook’s Instagram Purchase [Deal Journal] $$$ "Bain is a financial firm, but Romney wasn’t some Wall Street bank-monkey with a pitch book. He was the guy who fired you." [National Review] [!!] $$$ Wharton-Bound Goat Trainer Failed To Get Her Pet Goat To Perform On National Television [IvyGate] $$$ A middle market private equity firm is looking for a senior associate in South Florida [DBCC] $$$ Bernanke ‘More Popular Than Justin Bieber’? [CNBC] $$$ Broken Brokerages: Finance Luminaries Join Fight Over Uniform Fiduciary Standard [NYO] $$$ Chinese acquisitions in US near record [FT] $$$ Obama Says First Dog Bo Is on a Diet [DI] $$$ Man Convicted of Assault for Punching McDonald’s Employee After Sundae Arrived with Hot Fudge on the Bottom [Gawker]

$$$ Pierre-Henri Flamand is closing his event-driven hedge fund Edoma because there are no events [WSJ] $$$ Global Regulators to Cut List of Too-Big-To-Fail Banks to 28 [Bloomberg] $$$ Wells Seeks Mortgage-Suit Dismissal, Citing Redundancy [WSJ] $$$ Bloomberg endorses Obama [Bloomberg View] $$$ So does Whitney Tilson [BBW] $$$ Obviously there is a Harvard Business School Gangnam Style video [YouTube] $$$ The SEC is looking for a graphic artist / web designer in DC [DBCC] $$$ "Bernanke Depression Guru Seeks Roosevelt Well-Being" [Bloomberg] $$$ "The guide's popularity offers a glimpse into the world of aspiring management consultants" [WSJ] $$$ "Over the last 60 years, poll questions that asked people which candidate they expected to win have been a better guide to the outcome of the presidential race than questions asking people whom they planned to vote for." [NYT] $$$ Yield is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels [Aleph Blog] $$$ Cory Booker Not Taking Hot Pocket Crisis Seriously [DI]

$$$ J.C. Penney Ousts Ron Johnson, Rehires Myron Ullman [WSJ] $$$ Capital markets: Is Citi the new golden child of Wall Street? [Euromoney] $$$ White Confirmed as SEC Chairman [WSJ] $$$ A.I.G. Seeks to Bar Greenberg From Suing U.S. on Its Behalf [DealBook] $$$ David Stockman's dystopia [Fortune] $$$ Wrestling’s Private Equity Champion [DealBook] $$$ Google Glass Already Being Banned from Strip Clubs [BetaBeat] $$$ The Fine Line Between Political Intelligence and Insider Trading [DealBook] $$$ Hedge Funds Wagering on Fannie Reincarnation [Bloomberg] $$$ As Deadline Looms, Few Companies Sign Up to Trade Swaps [WSJ] $$$ Costs of derivatives clearing stack up for buy-side [Reuters] $$$ Volcker: Central banks are too aggressive [CNN] $$$ Market Crash Likelihood Goes Up If Stocks Continue to Rally: Marc Faber [CNBC] $$$ Science proves women like men with bigger penises [NBC]

$$$ Mitt Romney overpays his taxes, is rich [WaPo] $$$ Goldman Sachs is rolling out a hedge fund investing platform [Reuters] $$$ The ECB's pretend-you're-a-central-banker online game has a single mandate [Economist] $$$ SEC Said to Scrutinize Private Equity on Share of Payout [Bloomberg] $$$ Kato Kaelin Has a 'Gut Feeling' O.J. Simpson Was Guilty of Double Murder [ABC] $$$ BoNY Mellon is looking for a wealth management senior sales director in Greenwich [DBCC] $$$ EU in talks over Spanish rescue plan [FT] $$$ California found some more debt that it owes [NYT] $$$ Behind the Scenes, Some Lawmakers Lobby to Change the Volcker Rule [DealBook] $$$ Bank of America Is Now Stealing From Child Actors, Allegedly [Gawker]