Silly/Odd News Stories from around the World

[MrTerrorist]

Why is Hebden Bridge the lesbian capital?

Excuse me but i'll be gone for............

[Endless Soul]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Why is Hebden Bridge the lesbian capital?

Excuse me but i'll be gone for............

~chases after MT~

Don't go MT, they'll kill you!

Endless "Knows the dangers" Soul

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Endless Soul

~chases after MT~

Don't go MT, they'll kill you!

Endless "Knows the dangers" Soul

A bit pessimistic aren't you .

[SaintessHeart]

World’s Dumbest Traders Were at Credit Suisse: Jonathan Weil

The guilty pleas last week by two former Credit Suisse Group (CS) traders, on charges of falsifying their company’s asset values, revive an age-old question: How dumb do you have to be to get criminally convicted for a fraud you committed while working at a bank deemed too big to fail?

It’s a shame the television series “America’s Dumbest Criminals” went off the air more than a decade ago, because the cases of Salmaan Siddiqui, 36, and David Higgs, 42, would have provided wonderful fodder as an example of high finance gone feloniously brain-dead. Sure, their stories might not have the same mainstream appeal as, say, the video of a gun-wielding robber at a convenience store who wore a see-through plastic bag over his head as a disguise.

Still, their forays into illegality were so painfully dimwitted they deserve to be celebrated, if only to distract us from a more unnerving aspect of their story: In all probability, lots of other bankers committed the exact same kinds of acts during the financial crisis. And the vast majority of those who did will never be prosecuted, mainly because they weren’t so dense about the way they did it.

Imagine this: You are a Wall Street trader during the summer of 2007, specializing in complex mortgage bonds that no human being is capable of fully understanding. What little you do grasp about these bonds is that if their values go down too much, your year-end bonus won’t be as high as you want it to be.
Now You See

You also realize the bonds aren’t as valuable as they once were, because the market is collapsing. Maybe you don’t know exactly how much they are worth. But you certainly know grossly inflated prices when you see them. These are the values you want to show on your bank’s books. So you huddle constantly with some of your closest colleagues to cook up ways to make sure the numbers are much higher than they should be when you go to mark your trading book to market prices each day.

Normally, this might be a reliable Wall Street strategy for self-enrichment. The beauty of these assets is they are so illiquid and trade so infrequently, there is rarely a correct answer for their proper value. Judgment and subjectivity rule the day. Even giant overstatements could prove difficult for auditors to challenge. This is why it’s almost unheard of for anyone to face criminal charges for intentionally overvaluing assets like these.

So to get nailed by the cops for mismarking these bonds, you would basically have to be caught blabbing on tape that you didn’t believe the values you were putting down for them, during telephone calls that you knew your employer was recording. Discussing the innermost secrets of your conspiracy on company e-mails would increase your odds of getting caught, too. Nobody in his right mind would do things like that. However, these two guys, Siddiqui and Higgs, did.

Then, in a highly irregular development, their employer turned them in. Never let it be said the Justice Department won’t act on a juicy tip about criminal activity at a huge bank, so long as the tipster is the bank itself, of course. A third former Credit Suisse trader, Kareem Serageldin, 38, also was charged; his attorney has said he denies wrongdoing.

Not that Credit Suisse’s actions look all that pure now. The bank first disclosed in February 2008 that it had discovered the overvaluations in its trading book. This came a week after Credit Suisse released preliminary results for the 2007 fourth quarter. Then in March 2008, the company issued revised results, saying it had written down the bond values in its trading business by $2.65 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a parallel civil lawsuit, said about $1.3 billion of that amount was related to the defendants’ trading book.
Nothing Wrong

Looking back, what’s curious about Credit Suisse’s disclosure is that the bank said all the writedowns were related to either the fourth quarter of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008. In other words, going by what the bank said then, there supposedly was nothing wrong with the numbers on the financial statements that Credit Suisse filed for the third quarter of 2007, which is when the government says the fraud began.

Both the SEC and federal prosecutors said in their complaints last week that the defendants started mismarking Credit Suisse’s books in August 2007, during the third quarter. The SEC said that in September 2007, as a result of the defendants’ price manipulations, “Credit Suisse’s books, records and accounts contained false and misleading information.” Presumably, the amounts involved by then weren’t immaterial. Otherwise, why would the SEC mention this?

There is no explanation in the government’s court papers for why Credit Suisse didn’t restate any earlier numbers. A Credit Suisse spokeswoman, Victoria Harmon, declined to comment, as did an SEC spokesman,John Nester.

So, back to the original question: Not only does a trader at a too-big-to-fail bank have to be a total numbskull to get criminally convicted for fraudulently overvaluing his company’s most toxic assets. Chances are the bank itself has to turn him in. It has to deliver the feds an airtight case on a platter, leaving investigators no real choice but to follow up. Even then, it may take prosecutors four years to bring charges.

Too bad this story doesn’t come with video.

Annnndddd the World's Dumbest Journalist award goes to the author!

Seriously. Look at the independent forex traders who signed for 3-day classes, and those who got paid $1200 per month + commissions to flood currency markets with tens of thousands of units on leverage. These guys who work in banks at least knew what they are doing, just that they suck at it.

[ganbaru]

NYC sewage plant to offer Valentine's Day tours
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...02-10-07-37-33

[MrTerrorist]

Meet China’s New Nerd Goddess

Dear SaintessHeart, if you value your life, i suggest you stay away from her unless you want to suffer the wrath of her fans, the million netizens of China.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Meet China’s New Nerd Goddess

Dear SaintessHeart, if you value your life, i suggest you stay away from her unless you want to suffer the wrath of her fans, the million netizens of China.

Nice find! We might as well post the pictures( from Baidu) here.









She is from the Sichuan , which boasts the finest girls in China.

[Dhomochevsky]

It's because she's a legal loli, correct?

[MeoTwister5]

Holy shit she looks like someone I know in RL.

[Endless Soul]

The article says that it's rumored that she's a lesbian. Interesting.

Endless "<insert nickname here>" Soul

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Meet China’s New Nerd Goddess

Dear SaintessHeart, if you value your life, i suggest you stay away from her unless you want to suffer the wrath of her fans, the million netizens of China.

Do want.

I'll see if I can get Ayanyan and Kanatan's permission.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Holy shit she looks like someone I know in RL.

Uh my distant cousin across the causeway looks somewhat like her too; big ears, small face, minus the braids and /w spectacles, and a shrinking violet who still harbours "graduate from poly, find a good guy, get married, have children" kind of mentality.

The older I grow, the more of my distant cousins I meet, and the worse things get. FML.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

Nice find! We might as well post the pictures( from Baidu) here.









She is from the Sichuan , which boasts the finest girls in China.

Maybe it is time for a trip back to China. I haven't been back there in a while.

[sa547]

Also, Sichuan has some of the spiciest dishes, bar none.

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Meet China’s New Nerd Goddess

Dear SaintessHeart, if you value your life, i suggest you stay away from her unless you want to suffer the wrath of her fans, the million netizens of China.

There's a song really suited for her.

[Ithekro]

She looks really tired to me.

[ganbaru]

Ky school officials say bedbugs at school a hoax
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...02-13-08-18-10
Where could you expect to find bedbugs at a school, beside the school infirmary ?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Maybe it is time for a trip back to China. I haven't been back there in a while.

You DO understand that there are no lolicons there thanks to a "tough" judicial system right?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

You DO understand that there are no lolicons there thanks to a "tough" judicial system right?

1. she is legal
2. which is tougher, the judicial system or gold bars

[Anh_Minh]

So... How certain are you it's not a boy? I always wonder, these days...

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So... How certain are you it's not a boy? I always wonder, these days...

ahh *thinks andrej pejic*

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So... How certain are you it's not a boy? I always wonder, these days...

And that matters how?