FAB'S E-MAIL DIRTY TALK
"Well, what if we created a 'thing,' which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?"
- In a 2007 e-mail he sent to his girlfriend, Goldman Sachs whiz-kid Fabrice Tourre talks about his role in inventing controversial mortgage-backed derivative products for the investment bank - a job he described as "pure intellectual masturbation."
NEXT UP - PEOPLE MAG'S SEXIEST-CENTRAL-BANKER-ALIVE AWARD
"Central bankers aren't often young, good-looking and charming, but Mark Carney is all three - not to mention wicked smart."
- Time Magazine swoons over Bank of Canada boss Mark Carney, who made the magazine's annual list of the top-100 most influential people in the world.
UP THE CREEK WITHOUT AN INVESTMENT-GRADE PADDLE
"We believe that the dynamics of this confidence crisis have raised uncertainties about both the government's administrative capacity to implement reforms quickly and its political resolve to embrace a fiscal austerity program of many years' duration."
- Standard & Poor's delivers a blunt view of Greece's ability to pull out of its debt nosedive, as it slashed the country's credit rating to junk level.
BLACKENED SHRIMP
"The oil come in everywhere, the shrimp die, the crabs die, the fish die. What do I do? Stay home a long time?"
- Louisiana shrimp fisher Michael Nguyen frets that this season's catch - and his livelihood - may be wiped out by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of last week's explosion and sinking of a BP PLC offshore rig.
FREE ARTERY CLOGGING WITH EVERY MEAL!
"It's yet again another dietary disaster brought to you by fast food."
- Susan Levin, a dietitian for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, laments the latest mega-caloric dish to be introduced to North American restaurant-goer - a cheesecake-and-pancake sandwich, courtesy of DineEquity Inc.'s International House of Pancakes.
David Parkinson