Can any former IB folks attest to the characterization of Bear Stearns being kind of the loner-bad boy of Wall Street, as opposed to the more milquetoast houses of Merril Lynch, etc?

Yes, this is generally true. I don't entirely agree with the image of Bear as the leather-jacketed rebel though--it was definitely thought of as scrappy and also really frugal (the old story is that Bear had a strict limit on rubber band/paper clip usage under Ace... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 5:53 PM on July 1, 2008

Also, the same sort of thing exists with the big NYC law firms, though I'm struggling to remember how those broke down.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 6:04 PM on July 1, 2008

The Rendezvous chase is shot entirely from the bumper cam, right? It's a great video (and so is Senna's lap around Monaco), but I really prefer the out-of-car shots in the Bullitt chase. Seeing the cars roll on their suspension and oversteer around the corners is half the fun.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 1:22 PM on June 30, 2008

And if you think banning guns would significantly reduce the availability of guns for criminals, then just look at the drug war. It's been laying waste to america for decades, yet drugs are still readily available. The same would be true for guns.

If we banned the possession of handguns, wouldn't that drastically reduce the manufacture of new handguns (and replacement parts and ammunition)? And I imagine such legislation would include some method for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 9:17 AM on June 26, 2008

.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:22 PM on June 22, 2008

Moodstream sliders

I was expecting little greasy hamburgers, so now my mood is shitty.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:00 AM on June 18, 2008

Stop responding to konolia, you dorks. No one reads your special snowflake retort because everyone is too busy trying to come up with their own.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 3:39 PM on June 17, 2008

I did a shifter kart class at the Bob Bondurant racing school in Phoenix a few years back. Most fun I've ever had with my clothes on.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 7:29 PM on June 15, 2008

Back Story: Gore Vidal Interview.

C'mon, ericb, the money quote from that article deserves quoting:

Me: You had a calling. You knew what you wanted to do from an early age -- you needed to write. So many people today in the world suffer because they have no calling. They don’t know where their place is, what they should be doing.

Gore: Who gives a fuck?

Awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 3:05 PM on June 15, 2008

For baseball, meanwhile, sacrifice is an actual statistic: The best fail in 70 percent of their at-bats.

This isn't right either. On-base percentage is a better stat to use and the top 10 hitters end up in the .400 - .500 range. In basketball, the top scorers usually end up with field goal percentages in the mid- to high-40s. Sometimes low 50s. The top centers break into the mid-50s.

So the best basketball players... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 5:57 PM on June 13, 2008

Oh, shit. They're Belgians? This is awkward.

Don't worry, InBev is run by Brazilians.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 5:56 PM on June 12, 2008

The United States has a population of over 300,000,000 while Canada comes in at a little over 30,000,000 with 80% of that population within hours drive of the U.S. border.

We got all the people, they got all the oil and water. *headdesk*
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:00 PM on June 10, 2008

Oil maybe, water no.

According to this website, Canada has 2,850 km^3/year of renewable water resources vs the US's 2,000 km^3/year (excluding Alaska, which would add another 800 km^3/yearl). So, assuming I'm not totally misreading these spreadsheets, Canada has a small advantage in total water resources, but a huge advantage relative to population.

I read in this book that there was talk back in the '80s about a North... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 8:58 AM on June 11, 2008

.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 12:32 PM on June 2, 2008

An example that immediately springs to mind is one that included "Other: Enjoys spy and war novels", on a resume for a sales position we had open. Seriously, what is the rationale?

It indicates to potential employers that the candidate is not a one-dimensional work-robot.

This is the part of the resume I struggle with the most.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 11:50 AM on June 2, 2008

let's do thomas L. friedman anagrams.

Flat man! Or: he’s dim.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 6:52 PM on May 28, 2008

Maybe it's just the style of the article, but it didn't really seem like the FBI put much pressure on this Carroll guy. They asked him to spy on his friends for maybe some vague amount of money and then let him off the hook after he said "I'll pass"?

C'mon FBI, you're never going to find a date to the prom without a little self-confidence.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:45 PM on May 27, 2008

.

I didn't realize he was sick. I really enjoyed his work.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 8:57 PM on May 26, 2008

puke & cry is my Italian Spiderman.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 11:00 PM on May 23, 2008

ZachsMind: You're a bad person.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:34 PM on May 25, 2008

Where do the US presidential candidates stand on the issue of fixed gear bikes? It may come down to that for me.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:12 PM on May 25, 2008

I bought one of these wall stickers. What a giant pain in the ass to put up.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 8:46 AM on May 13, 2008

I still have my financial services sector job, but I'd guess even odds that I won't have it by year-end. That's a little better than the 2:1 odds I put on it when Bear crashed.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:07 PM on May 1, 2008

onalark: Many equity-focused hedge funds had great years last year. Some because financial shorts worked out well and many just due to volatility. Volatility in general is beneficial to most hedge funds because they often hold both long and short positions*. Most equity-focused hedge funds I know about were roughly flat through the first couple months this year, and some have taken advantage of this March-April rally.

Aside from some notable blow ups, it seems that many... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 6:18 AM on May 5, 2008

A hedge fund that focuses on equities invests primarily in stocks (and derivatives, like put and call options, with stocks as the underlying asset). Usually there is a theme--one hedge fund may specialize in technology stocks while another looks for undervalued companies in any industry. Other hedge funds invest only in debt-instruments, like corporate bonds, government debt, mortgage-backed securities and other "fixed income" type of investments. And then there are hedge funds that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 9:19 AM on May 5, 2008

I recently bought a second HP-12C to keep at home. I just couldn't relax while my only RPN calculator stayed back at the office.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 3:18 PM on April 25, 2008

It would've been kinda cool if Jordan did this yesterday.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:23 AM on April 24, 2008

"Why does Denver get its own omelet?"

Oh man, I really miss Adam Corolla-era Loveline.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 1:22 PM on April 12, 2008

Interesting article.

I grew up eating Mexican food (of various levels of authenticity) in Arizona and when I finally got around to discovering Middle Eastern and Indian food, I was really struck by the similarities. In my own amateurish and spontaneous food preparations, I tend to mix elements from each. Even Chipotle serves basmati rice with their burritos.

Another intersection is the use of vertical rotisseries for both shawarma and tacos al... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 7:56 AM on April 10, 2008

Heh, my tacos al pastor link answers my question right off the bat. I was just looking for the picture at first. :)
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 7:57 AM on April 10, 2008

bunyip: Great link. That definitely confirms my assumptions about tacos al pastor.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 11:39 AM on April 10, 2008

Hi, I'm an admin for a tag called bestoftheweb, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 8:01 AM on April 9, 2008

If we were in a calm economic environment and Bear, for non-systematic reasons, failed—say they put all their money into cheesesandwich.com or something, and they failed for that reason, then it might be appropriate to let them go bankrupt because the rest of the financial system would be stable.

Actually, Fitch just re-affirmed cheesesandwich.com's bonds at AAA. It's money-good.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 4:16 PM on April 8, 2008

If it weren't the penny, these people would be complaining about the cost of a nickel.

The article in the FPP spends some time on the nickel as well. Measured by the ratio of commodity value to the currency's face value, the nickel is a worse offender than the penny. Congressman Lucas is quoted in the article on nickels:

“I think we need to assess stepping back from the nickel, the five-cent piece, and consider readopting... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 1:34 PM on April 4, 2008

I'd like to see video of the monkey refueling.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:17 PM on March 30, 2008

People following the credit crisis will probably recognize the name of Border's activist shareholder, Pershing Square Capital. That's William Ackman's fund. The same guy who has been hounding the Fed about the financial guarantors (MBIA and Ambac, specifically). Here's a NYTimes article on the topic with a link to the 20-page letter he sent to the Fed and others.

Pershing Square also holds a big stake in Barnes & Noble.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 1:47 PM on March 27, 2008

Q: Which of the Three Stooges do you like best?
A: Larry. I like the middleman. You can't really like Moe because he's always poking people in the eyes.

SCANDAL ALERT: Tina Fey disses Moe, accuses him of using torture techniques in violation of the Geneva Convention.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 9:34 AM on March 25, 2008

This is just my observation, but it seems like home-buyers (especially young buyers) tend to buy more house than they really need. This could be rational if they're planning to start a family in the next 5 or 10 years and stay in the same house for the long run. But it can also be a big risk, as we're seeing now.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 6:36 PM on March 21, 2008

Also, CIT, one of the largest independent commercial finance companies, had a bit of a liquidity crisis yesterday. It drew down $7.3 billion of bank lines, the maximum it had available, and announced that it would seek to sell of $5 - $7 billion in assets (roughly 10% of its on balance sheet investments).

A lot of people in these threads wonder how the failure of big finance companies will affect them. Well, if CIT goes into bankruptcy, the fall out could be quite... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 7:12 AM on March 21, 2008

Credit Suisse has like 1.2T in assets under management. 1.2T. Please stop posting terrible posts.

There's a lot of hand-waving on MeFi, but you just committed the opposite crime. Credit Suisse does have CHF 1.4T in assets, but only 44B in shareholder's equity and 32.7B in Tier 1 Capital. The 2.9B in write-downs look tiny in comparison to the entire balance sheet, but not so tiny when compared to the bank's capital ratios. Though, CS is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 12:32 PM on March 21, 2008

Screw-up 2: Shaq

This is a much simpler screw-up. I was working in Augusta, and I decided it would be fun to writing a fishing column.

FUN TO WRITING? Looks like we have professional screw-up #4! LOL!
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:31 PM on March 20, 2008

From the post on interfluidity.Suppose that Monday morning, Ben Bernanke is presented with a deal, under which a buyer gets Bear assets on the cheap, Bear stockholders get paid out, and the Fed (implicitly or explicitly) bears residual risk. If the Fed doesn't approve, executives say, Bear will file for bankruptcy. Dr. Bernanke will then have an unappetizing choice. He can say yes, and hope that there aren't any more rumors out there about any other firms. Or he can say no, and make it very... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 9:31 PM on March 16, 2008

scody: Some employer-sponsored retirement funds have less options than others, but you should be able to re-allocate your money into different investments without actually withdrawing them from the account. At the very least, you should be able to hold 100% cash or US Treasuries. In any case, figure out your options within the retirement account before paying a big tax penalty.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:30 PM on March 16, 2008

so what's up with the DOW? how does it keep finishing up overall despite all this bleak financial and economic news

The DJIA consists of 30 large companies. As of right now, the Dow is slightly up while most of the broader US equity indexes are down. This is due in part to the fact that JPMorgan is one of the 30 DJIA components and it is up about 11.66% as I type this.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 1:04 PM on March 17, 2008

I'm not sure if this has been discussed here, but the Swedish banking crisis of the early '90s is an interesting case study. Especially in comparison to Japan's problems around the time.

Excerpt from a report by Merrill Lynch’s David Rosenberg called “Transitioning from crisis prevention to management”:

Intervention by the federal government has to happen
This brings us to the second development, which is that in this new chapter of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 10:56 AM on March 20, 2008

That was from a report that came out Monday, 3/17. Sorry for the odd line-breaks--copying/pasting from pdfs is always a pain.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 11:00 AM on March 20, 2008

Just after this shot, is that Marlo that Spider shakes hands with?
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 2:54 PM on March 10, 2008

[Marlo] walked up on those kids who were telling an Omar story and challenged them. He wasn't on a corner otherwise

Ahh, thanks, kirkaracha. I hadn't gotten that far into your post yet. Good stuff. Thanks for the post.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 4:07 PM on March 10, 2008

No, he was preemptively mocking your reaction to the movie.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 12:22 PM on March 8, 2008

Is Huckabee subliminally attracting Christians?

Yes, another subtle hint is the line "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ."
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 3:52 PM on March 2, 2008