Overheard outside the Aviva building just now, one broker chatting to another about his plans for the England v Slovenia match this afternoon: “Yeah, I’m just gonna leave my jacket on the back of the chair and duck out.“

I expect a lot of that today.

Good luck, England.

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Barry Ritholtz at the Think Tank has 10 Interesting Points to make about the SEC case against Goldman Sachs.

I especially like:

7. This is a Complex Case: Again, no. Parts of it are a little more sophisticated than others, but this is a simple case of fraud/misrepresentation. The most difficult part of this case is likely to turn on what is a “material omission.” Paulson’s role in selecting mortgages may or may not be material — that is an issue of fact for a jury to determine. But complex? Not even close.

And also the final one:

10. I’m not a lawyer, but . . . Then you should not be ignorantly commenting on securities litigation. Why don’t you pour yourself a tall glass of STF up and go sit quietly in the corner.

The comments are quite good, too.

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WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

Calling it “basically no more than five rectangular strips of paper,” Fed chairman Ben Bernanke illustrates how much “$200″ is actually worth.

What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world’s largest economy.

“Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…” said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this—this so-called ‘money’—really matters at all.”

“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”

According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, “Oh my God, he’s right. It’s all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it’s all a lie!”

Read the full, terrible truth here. And then go home to tend your garden.

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No, not a reference to a tired and emotional broker who won’t be quiet, but a reflection of one of the minor joys of working for a US firm.

We all receive circular emails from time to time punting some sort of ‘must have’ service. Most of them are pretty pedestrian and more or less pointless or inappropriate. So this one that landed in my inbox today rather leaped out at me, entitled, as it was:

8 Issues When Doing Business or Contracting With Native American Tribes

And it then went on to evangelize on the benefits of joining their course:

There are more than 500 federally-recognized American Indian tribes in the United States, each established under a constitution unique to the tribe. Each tribe, through its constitution and subsequent legislation, has developed its own laws and regulations addressing issues of contracting, jurisdiction and waivers, if any, of sovereign immunity. Individuals and entities seeking to do business with and/or contract with one or more tribes must become familiar with the laws and regulations of each tribe when preparing to engage in business with the tribe. However, there are also basic tenets of American Indian law that can be applied to all aspects of doing business and/or contracting with individual American Indian tribes. This teleconference is designed to provide you with the tools to recognize the uniqueness of each American Indian tribe while applying the basic tenants of contracting with these same tribes.

It sounds fascinating, and having long been an admirer of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, I’d love the chance to work in this field. But it seems unlikely, given the distance from Lime Street.

No jokes about “siouxing” people, please.

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A pub crawl whereby a new person is added at each location and has to buy a round. Each new person is promised that they will get free drinks at all the future bars if they buy this round. Obviously, last person to join the ponzi crawl gets screwed.

“Made-up Madoff News”, via anonymous e-mail.

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An unusual case in Italy rested on an allegation of double trouble: identical twin sisters were prosecuted for a long-running scam in which one allegedly filled in for the other at work. Gabriela Odisio, a lawyer and part-time judge from Magenta, allegedly used her sister Patrizia to impersonate her when she was double-booked, allowing her to draw fees for being in two places at once. The sisters managed to fool everyone for three years, prosecutors said. Their ruse was only discovered after they were overheard discussing their plans by a client.

Better give your lawyer a really thorough look over when you get your next bill.

(Source: The Times)

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This just in on the e-mail:

Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup. November 20 (Bloomberg) — The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup. The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the finale, Ali said. “You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali. The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities (PRBS). The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P are reportedly prepared to issue their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.

It reminds me of Little Bonaparte addressing the Lovers of Italian Opera: “In duh lass fiscal year we made a hundred an’ twelve million dollars before taxes – only we din’t pay no taxes!”

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From the always wonderful PJ O’Rourke comes this simple person’s take on how we got into this mess:

Brokerages were saying, “We’re going to sell you a room full of horse s–. And with that much horse s–, you just know there’s a pony in there somewhere.”

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I’ve refrained from commenting on the global financial turmoil for the most part, and I know one should really be trying to put words of wisdom together, but frankly it’s all gone so mad that I’m beginning to think the Daily Mash have the right idea:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/banks-fucked-20080424901/

>Julian Cook, an analyst at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: “Remember that bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the big, baldy German guy is punching Indiana Jones and then turns round to see the propellers coming straight towards him? That’s how fcuked they are.”

Quite.

You might also like their take on the dire straits that some senior banking figures may find themselves in:

>EXECUTIVES at Lehman Brothers could be forced to manually adjust the seating temperature in their Mercedes, it was claimed last night.

>As America’s fourth largest investment bank collapsed, the management team have downgraded their executive limousine orders for next year insisting they can no longer afford the automatic body heat regulator and the climate controlled glove box.

>Lehman chief executive Dick Fuld said: “Be in no doubt, the long term effects of this collapse are going to be awful. For you.

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I came across this story in an edition of the Times from 2007.

Basically, this guy awoke to find the staff manouevring into the seat next to him the body of a little old lady who had died shortly after take off.

Leaving aside the self-pitying reaction of the passenger–”I’m paying £3,000 for this“–parts of the story struck me as falling into the category of ’stuff you’d really rather not think about’.

A spokesman said: “When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused.” [emphasis added]

They make it sound like a pretty regular occurrence, even though the BA man goes on to say that there are only 10 deaths per year out of 26m passengers.

But then why has Singapore Airlines introduced “corpse cupboards” on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft, especially when we are told that “Cabin crews use the locker if there is no empty row of seats to place a corpse.” Presumably because they’re already full of bodies…

So if you wake up and find Henry Kissinger next to you, give him a discreet prod and check that he’s still breathing.

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