Finland leads the world in weird sports and pranks

[drillinto]

He sat alone in a room for 24 hours with 6 TVs, a laptop, and 2 radios watching and reading only political pundits and blogs. Yes, it can be done...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802463_pf.html

 

[drillinto]

Weird !
*************

Goldman sees credit losses totaling $1.2 trillion
Wed Mar 26, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs forecasts global credit losses stemming from the current market turmoil will reach $1.2 trillion, with Wall Street accounting for nearly 40 percent of the losses.

U.S. leveraged institutions, which include banks, brokers-dealers, hedge funds and government-sponsored enterprises, will suffer roughly $460 billion in credit losses after loan loss provisions, Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a research note released late on Monday.

Losses from this group of players are crucial because they have led to a dramatic pullback in credit availability as they have pared lending to shore up their capital and preserve their capital requirements, they said.

Goldman estimated $120 billion in write-offs have been reported by these leveraged institutions since the credit crunch began last summer.

"U.S. leveraged institutions have written off less than half of the losses associated with the bursting of the credit bubble," they said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is still rather dim."

Of the cumulative losses expected by these leveraged players, bad residential home loans will represent about half, while poor-performing commercial mortgages will represent 15 percent to 20 percent.

The rest of the losses will come from credit card loans, car loans, commercial and industrial lending and non-financial corporate bonds, Goldman economists said.

Facing more credit losses, leveraged institutions have raised about $100 billion in new capital from domestic and foreign investors and reduced dividend payouts. This amount is more than three-quarters of the write-offs to date, the report said.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)

 

[drillinto]

The Nigerian Scam Letter Gallery is a must read.

http://www.quatloos.com/cm-niger/abacha.htm

 

[drillinto]

From equity trader to professional fighter

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081118.wcagefight1122/BNStory/Business/home

 

[drillinto]

Finger size link to earning power
BBC News, 13 JAN 2009

The length of a man's fingers may predict his success in the City, research findings suggest.

Scientists at Cambridge University found that financial traders whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers make the most money.

The link could be down to testosterone exposure in the womb, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says.

This exposure may improve rapid decision-making skills and has been linked with aggression.

The same ring-to-index finger ratio, which is determined in the womb, has previously been associated with success in competitive sports.

Researcher John Coates and his team reported last year that testosterone seemed to boost short term success at finance after they found City traders with higher levels of the male hormone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day.

Aggression hormone

Their latest findings are based on a study of 44 men working as traders in London, some of whom earned more than £4 million a year.

Over 20 months those traders with longer ring fingers made 11 times more money than those with the shortest ring fingers relative to their index fingers.

This "biological" impact on success was about equal to years of experience at the job. The most experienced traders made about nine times more than the least experienced ones.

When the researchers looked only at the experienced traders, those with longer ring fingers earned far more than those with shorter ring fingers - £838,000 compared to £154,000 on average, respectively.

The scientists believe that exposure to the "aggression" hormone testosterone in the womb may have improved the traders' concentration and honed reflexes necessary to follow prices and make trades on extremely short notice.

This suggests that success on the financial markets is influenced by biology as much as experience, the researchers told PNAS.

Meanwhile, Belgian researchers have found men with longer ring fingers become less "socially minded" - less willing to give money to a fellow participant - after watching aggressive movies.

The reverse was also true - those with shorter ring fingers gave away the most money.

Lead researcher Kobe Millet said: "These results tell us that levels of testosterone people are exposed to before birth go on to affect their behaviour throughout their lives."

He said studies suggested similar associations with finger length are also seen in women.

 

[Buddy]

I believe it is also said that there are no Olympic runners, who have their 3rd toe longer than their 2nd. Not sure what that's got to do with Finland but anyway......

 

[Calliope]

Their coppers are pretty smart too;


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7795725.stm