Favorite Wall Street pastimes: recreational dwarf tossing

Not TCD worthy news: According to the NY Times, James S. Shorris, the No. 2 dude at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Wall Street’s self-policing organization) is leaving to pursue a job in the private sector.

TCD worthy news: some of the cases he oversaw in his time at FINRA

At the height of the crisis in 2008, Finra filed 1,073 disciplinary actions, down from 1,204 two years before. Last year, Finra brought 1,310 cases, but levied $41 million in fines, roughly half what it collected in 2006.

Cases Shorris over saw included, but were not limited to:

$7.5 million fine against Deutsche Bank for misleading investors about the danger of its subprime mortgage-backed securities.

Boring

The case against the securities firm Jefferies & Company, which bestowed lavish gifts and entertainment on Fidelity Investment traders — including private air travel, tickets to the Super Bowl and a weekend-long party that featured recreational dwarf-tossing.

According to a TCD source, dwarf-tossing became popular in the 1980s (obviously). It involves throwing a dwarf dressed in a Velcro suit at a Velcro-covered wall. The dwarf usually wears a crash helmet and has handles on the back of his (or her) padded clothing which are used to remove him or her from the wall to which he or she is stuck. No word on whether the dwarves at the Jeffries party were properly outfitted.

Are we living in a new age of McCarthyism?

The war on cheese has begun, and responsible cheese eaters country-wide must pay attention.

The comparison to McCarthyism might be a little unfair. Afterall, it is the government that is promoting cheese consumption as opposed to trying to root it out. However, the heretical assault being launched by quack-infiltrated organizations like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is rife with accusations of subversion and treason without proper evidence. This aggression will not stand.

It's high time we in this country as both citizens and individuals start taking responsibility for our own problems. For instance, Americans need not blame China for the unemployment rate, but rather examine root causes of laziness, poor work ethic, and education. Likewise, we can't blame cheese consumption, or a $140 million government sponsored marketing campaign on behalf of the cheese industry, for obesity in this country, but rather examine root causes like lack of exercise, over eating and the decision to order Domino's American Legend Six-cheese thin crust pizza than a pizza with one type of cheese.

Anyway, my opinion is pretty clear. But read the NY Times article here and decide for yourself.

Infrastructure Truth

Bob Herbert's scathing op-ed in today's NYT is worth everyone's read. Herbert takes a hard look at the state of infrastructure in our country, particularly the nation's water systems. Needless to say the details are ugly/scary/disappointing.

You want scathing? Check this out...

If this were a first-class society we would rebuild our water systems to the point where they would be the envy of the world, and that would bolster the economy in the bargain. But that would take maturity and vision and effort and sacrifice, all of which are in dismayingly short supply right now.

You want scary?

The nation’s network of water systems was right at the bottom of the latest infrastructure grades handed out by the American Society of Civil Engineers, receiving a D-minus. Jeffrey Griffiths, a member of the federal government’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council, told The Times: “We’re relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and no one wants to pay for the decades we’ve spent ignoring them. There’s a lot of evidence that people are getting sick. But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become.”

Read the full article in print. Or here.

The Coughing Dog Bait - Lake Trout Article in the NYT

There is possibly no more perfect NYT story for The Coughing Dog to link to than one about Lake Trout in Baltimore.

Popularized in The Wire, Lake Trout is a distinctly local, and apparently real phenomenon. The writers of this blog are mostly in agreement that The Wire is the greatest television drama in history, and so we've been obsessed with Lake Trout for a long time.

"Yo, get me a lake trout sub, and a strawberry soda." Phil says that to me almost every day. Now the next time he's down in Baltimore, he'll know the right spots to find a Lake Trout sandwich himself. You will too.

Tweet No More

At TCD we hold ourselves to high journalistic standards, similar to those of the NY Times. Per company policy, as at the NY Times, use of the world "tweet" in blogs should henceforth only apply to appropriate ornithological contexts.

Seriously. According to reports, Phil Corbett, the newest standards editor at the New York Times, has banned usage of the term in NYT articles. Despite being on Twitter, I really, really applaud this move. Especially the line in the memo he reportedly sent out to staff this morning that said, "some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, “tweet” has not yet achieved the status of standard English."

Cheers, Phil Corbett.

Wall Street Goes to Washington

Lots in the news today about Goldman Sachs's CEO Lloyd Blankfein's trip to DC and the Senate battle over financial reform. Offering two surprisingly rational views on issues ranging from the housing bubble, Goldman's sneaky investment vehicles, stupid investors, smart investors, government mismanagement and pending financial reform is the New York Times. Not as surprising is that the two centrist views are furthered by one of the Times's more conservative Op-Ed columnists - David Brooks - and a contributing editor from Vanity Fair named Bethany McLean. Brooks talks about the gross pervasiveness of group think in Washington, which as far as I can tell has been going on since the term was coined during the deliberations of the Kennedy Administration over Bay of Pigs. Bethany McLean attempts to spread the blame a little more liberally, claiming that no one comes away clean in this mess, but ultimately - and compellingly - ends up dumping the blame on Congress.

I say Washington should clean house and put the TCD staff in charge. Or at least Senator Woodcock.

Addendum to previous post

In today's New York Times, there's a SWEET interactive that walks you through the famous werewolf movies from the past 70 years. You can watch the trailer and read a plot summary of each. Worth the time. Go to it here.

Cool infographic: Walking in Holden's footsteps

From The New York Times comes a sweet infographic that tracks Holden's path through NYC with a lot of accompanying information.

Check it out here.

Survivor of both atomic bombs dies at 93

In today's New York Times they reported on the ultimate survival story:

The only official survivor of both the atomic blasts to hit Japan in World War II has died.

Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated above Hiroshima.

Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than 2 miles away from ground zero. His eardrums were ruptured and his upper torso was burned by the blast, which destroyed most of the city’s buildings and killed 80,000 people.

Mr. Yamaguchi spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day, according to interviews he gave over the years. The second bomb, known as “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing 70,000 people there.

Mr. Yamaguchi was in his Nagasaki office, telling his boss about the Hiroshima blast, when “suddenly the same white light filled the room,” he said in an interview last March with The Independent newspaper.

Russia plans to deflect a huge asteroid that could potentially hit earth

This story is straight out of the movies...click here for the full story.

Russia’s top space researchers will hold a closed-door meeting to plan a mission to deflect 99942 Apophis, an asteroid that will fly close to Earth two decades from now, said Anatoly N. Perminov, the head of Russia’s space agency, during an interview on Russian radio on Wednesday.

Mr. Perminov said Apophis, named for the Egyptian god of destruction, is about three times the size of the Tunguska meteorite, apparently the cause of a 1908 explosion in Siberia that knocked over an estimated 80 million trees. He said that according to his experts’ calculation, there was still time to design a spacecraft that could alter Apophis’s path before it made a dangerous swing toward Earth.

“I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032,” he said, adding, “We’re talking about people’s lives here. It’s better to spend several million dollars and create this system, which would not allow a collision to happen, than wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people.”

The Dude Abides

In today's New York Times, there's an interesting article on how The Big Lebowski has gone from sweet movie, to cult classic, to now academic study piece.

Read it here.


“The Big Lebowski” has spawned its own shaggy, fervid world: drinking games, Halloween costumes, bumper stickers (“This aggression will not stand, man”) and a drunken annual festival that took root in Louisville, Ky., and has spread to other cities. The movie is also the subject of an expanding shelf of books, including “The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers” and the forthcoming “The Tao of the Dude.”

The Jobless Rate for People Like You: A New York Times interactive graphic

Not all groups have felt the recession equally. This interactive graphic from the New York Times allows you compare unemployment rates across demographic groups (race, age, gender). Some of the data is shocking.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html

Second City celebrates its 50th Anniversary

Check out this interactive graphic from today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/15/arts/20091216_SECONDCITY_TIMELINE.html

New York Times slideshow: Hunting in Greenland

Check it here: The Hunters of Greenland

Do we need the US Postal Service?

The Postal Service is a mess. They're hemorrhaging cash, people are transferring their bills, payments, and correspondences online and it turns out that jacking the cost of postage 2 cents every year isn't going to provide enough new revenue to cover costs. Below is a little more detail:

From the NY Times:
Although your mailbox may be overflowing with catalogs and a few holiday cards may have started to appear, the United States Postal Service is in crisis. For fiscal year 2009, the Postal Service reported a net loss of $3.8 billion, despite more than $6 billion in cost cuts. Meanwhile, total mail volume fell by nearly 26 billion pieces, or 13 percent.

We still need the Postal Service for now...too many people still don't have computers, consistent access to the internet, or the online savvy to move their finances, etc. online. But do we need it in ten years? I doubt it. I'm not calling the full demise of the Postal Service, but certainly a reduction in services and service days offered and a significant downsizing of employees and benefits.

In a world where print media outlets are being shuttered almost daily, can we really picture a long life for the ultimate paper-based business?

Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn Clears Legal Hurdle

The last major obstacle to a groundbreaking for the massive $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn fell Tuesday when New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, dismissed a challenge to the state’s use of eminent domain on behalf of the developer, Bruce C. Ratner.

Mr. Ratner, whose 22-acre development has been delayed for three years by a flurry of lawsuits, the collapse of the credit and real estate markets and a glut of luxury housing, plans to begin selling tax-free bonds next month to finance the development’s cornerstone project: an 18,000-seat basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues near downtown.

For the full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/nyregion/25yards.html?_r=1&hp

From The Times...a great graphic of interesting inventions