Quotes of the day

I think [Robert Rubin and Larry Summers] were wrong and I think I was wrong to take [their advice]--Bill Clinton

In its defense against the fraud charges the SEC just clobbered it with, Goldman pointed out that it had lost $90 million on the collapse of the Abacus CDO because it had retained a "substantial long position" in the transaction. So that means... Goldman was betting against Paulson & Co.--Henry Blodget

Alan S. Rosenman took over ACA Capital as president and CEO in 2004 - because -- wait for it -- his predecessor Michael Satz had "personal income tax issues" -- (how murky is this story going to get you must be asking?) According to a Business Week article dated April 3 by David Henry and Matthew Goldstein, Rosenman "immediately began to push ACA into CDO insurance, an area his predecessor, Satz, had only begun to explore." Rosenman's wife, or at least partner -- they are listed as sharing a house together for which they paid $6.1 million in 2005 in New York -- is Frances "Fran" R. Bermanzohn, who is managing director and deputy general counsel at ... Goldman Sachs.--Vicky Ward

Baywatch convinces people that there is a certain level of ordinary materialism that everyone can have. "This is what it $20,000 a year looks like." That's what's going to destroy America. ... the characters in the new crop of 20 something TV have access to material goods way outside their pay range, but they are made so ordinary you never think to question it. We know very well how Pamela Anderson affords it. But it's made axiomatic that CJ can. ... In twenty years, Pamela Anderson probably won't look like she does now, but she'll still have her money. But what's going to happen to the 20 somethings who expect a certain basic level of luxury? Baywatch is popular all over the world, so this won't be limited to Americans. What's coming is a worldwide generation of future 40 year olds who will not be able to afford what they are now being conditioned to expect.--The Last Psychiatrist

[Susan] Pinker does more than dryly discuss the biology; she provides example after example of women who have succeeded in this “man’s world” and found it wanting. As Pinker explains, let’s move on past the idea that a woman can’t do the same work as a man, and discuss why she may not want to.--Rebecca Burch

According to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 39.8% of boys with an average IQ score have had sex, while only 29.2% of boys with an IQ above 110 have done the deed.--K. Manning

One theory suggests that creative output obeys a predictable pattern over time, which is best represented by an "inverted U curve." The shape of the curve captures the steep rise and slow fall of individual creativity, with performance peaking after a few years of work before it starts to decline in middle age. By the time scientists are eminent and well-funded—this tends to happen in the final years of their careers—they are probably long past their creative prime. The inverted U curve was first documented by Adolphe Quetelet, a 19th-century French mathematician and sociologist. Mr. Quetelet's study was simple: He plotted the number of plays produced by French and English playwrights over the course of their life spans. He soon discovered that creativity had a sweet spot, which seemed to always occur between the ages of 25 and 50. ... differences in peak age appear to be cultural universals, with poets peaking before novelists in every major literary tradition, according to his research.--Jonah Lehrer